


The Ouroboros

by WyrmLivvy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Snow White Fusion, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Drama, Friendship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 01:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 52,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9049342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WyrmLivvy/pseuds/WyrmLivvy
Summary: Once upon a time, a woman wished to have a child with the man she loved, that would have his porcelain skin as white as snow, his rosy cheeks red as blood, and his dark hair black as ebony.…The child was not born with red cheeks but red eyes.  (Tomarry vampire/fairy tale/Snow White AU)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darklordtomarry (das_omen)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/das_omen/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Snow White](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6314029) by [Eiserne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiserne/pseuds/Eiserne). 



> Content warnings: violence, child abuse, death, murder, blood,
> 
> Character death warning: Sirius is in this fic and he dies after an extended period of illness. 
> 
> This fic is totally unBrit-picked and written in Standard American English. 
> 
> Big thanks to lesmismignon who gave me permission to remix her fic in the first place. 
> 
> Thanks to The Fictionist’s Kisses Cursed which got me into tomarry and definitely influenced this fic. Thanks to ObsidianPen’s Hauntingly which definitely influenced this fic. 
> 
> Special thanks to vertibird’s beautiful tumblr theme side pic which I occasionally stared at to keep myself going as I wrote. It was more useful than my bad 5 min tomarry manip of that one (in)famous Twilight screencap meme where Edward is standing behind Bella and she is saying “I know what you are.”, which I have since deleted because it was really bad. 
> 
> My thanks to my secretsanta giftee darklordtomarry for inspiring me with their blog and Small Gods/Soul Limbo meta which helped me think of a good ending for Voldemort and Harry. I swear I had already settled on titling this fic “The Ouroboros” before you made your logo! I hope you enjoy this Tom Riddle Redemption Arc AU~

One cold midwinter day, a young woman hung out of the ebony framed window of the small, miserable shack that was her home. Plainness was her main attribute and not a thing stood out about her except for the gold locket that hung from her neck. 

Merope Gaunt was singing to herself. _“Black is the color of my true love's hair. His face is like some rosy fair - ”_

With needle in hand, She was mending one of the drab grey dresses she owned. 

_“ - the prettiest face and the neatest hands, I love the ground whereon he stands.”_

She waited for the man with whom she was besotted to ride by on his horse. He would eventually, for Lord Riddle lived nearby in a large, extravagant manor, and would have to pass by on his way back from his excursions. 

He does.

She saw his dark hair and dark eyes, pale skin, and rosy cheeks flushed from his trip out in the snow. 

At that moment, in her excited state of joy, Merope pricked her finger on her needle, and with that, three drops of her blood fell on the snow. 

It was a sight for her. The red blood on the white snow framed by the black window. Riddle himself. 

She desperately wished then, to have a child with him, and for the child to look like him. Red, white, black. 

A dangerous wish. 

Her blood that had fallen on the snow did not lose its freshness, instead from that ground a red rose grew. A beautiful, bewitching rose. 

She plucked the rose and offered it to her obsession. Escape was impossible the moment he grasped the rose and bled on its thorns. 

Merope moved to the manor to live with him and they married. Merope Gaunt became Merope Riddle and eventually, she became pregnant with his child. 

—

The child was born in the winter, on December 31, the last day of the year around New Year’s Eve, that strange liminal time where on one end the old year was dying and the on the other the new year would began. 

Merope’s wish had come true. Or had it?

Horrible visions were before her. Yes, the baby boy’s skin was white like snow and his hair black like ebony…but his eyes were red like blood, and slitted like a serpent’s. 

Those eyes weren’t human. 

The servants around her were a mess, the manor in a state of panic rather than the celebration normally associated with New Year’s Eve. Even if they weren’t present at the birth, gossip spread quickly about the newborn baby’s eyes.

As horrifying as his eyes were, another image overlaid over the baby’s form that only Merope saw when she looked at him. A hairless, red and flayed skeletal creature. This mutilated creature, she knew, was also her baby. 

Merope screamed and screamed. 

She did not recover. Shortly after giving birth, she passed on. 

It was as if a spell had been broken. 

Riddle remarried. 

Still, he had allowed the thing to be named by Merope and have his name be a part of it. 

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The child would be left his mother’s gold locket, and a gold ring set with a black stone. 

—

On the night of Tom’s birth, an old man was sat in the secret, private room of an inn. The old man was on winter break from the school he oversaw and visiting his brother in Little Hangleton. The inn belonged to his brother and the room provided was well soundproofed from the rest of the inn, which was filled with rowdy and drunk patrons who were celebrating inside, and out of the snow. 

The man had a long beard and kindly eyes behind half-moon glasses, but also an aura of power. He was quite sober but across from him sat a frizzy haired woman who wore larger, full glasses and held a half finished bottle of sherry in her gaudily adorned fingers. She was buzzed, and had been held back from drinking more by the man. 

She was complaining to him. “Albus,” she said,“It’s going to be the New Year!” Surely she should have been allowed to celebrate more heavily? 

In the middle of her grievance, the drink fell from the woman’s hands when she fell into a Trance. 

In another voice, she spoke of evil and immortality. 

The man listened, and grasped the nature of the child born that night. 

He sighed after the woman returned to herself and wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders while frowning at the spilled drink wasted on the ground. 

“He is a child and a monster both.” He said. 

Nothing would be done. Yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Tom Marvolo Riddle was seven years old. 

He sat at a dining table, alone. 

His stepmother - the Lady of the manor, was also in the room, and by her the groundskeeper, Frank Bryce. Tom’s father was not in the manor and even when he was, Tom hardly ever saw him. 

Frank was nervous while Tom’s stepmother wore a mask of calmness. She had caught Frank while he was in the middle of work. Besides the apple, he had brought with him a pair of shears which he had set down on an nearby desk. 

He still had gardening gloves on and held in his trembling hand, a red apple. 

The stepmother wore silk gloves, her fingers adorned with jeweled gold rings. 

At her command he handed her the apple and in turn she offered it to her stepson. 

Tom watched with his red, slitted eyes.

What was this? A woman was offering the serpent an apple?

“Groundskeeper Bryce tended to the tree, but I especially prepared this apple for you.” She said. 

Tom’s gaze caught her’s and instinctually she shuddered and looked away. 

Everyone always wanted to avoid his eyes. 

“Why?” Tom asked, taking the apple into his hand. His skin prickled. 

“Why?” She echoed. 

Why are you giving me this deadly fruit? He thought but did not ask. 

“Desert for you, darling.” His stepmother said. “A candied apple, red like your beautiful eyes.” 

How strange that she was offering him dessert when oftentimes, like today, she neglected to give him dinner. It wasn’t real, but a farce. Still, the illusion of a loving mother having prepared a sweet dessert for her beloved child was precious. How could he not take a bite?

Perhaps eating death would be better than being slowly starved into it. 

Tom put the apple to his lips. 

One bite. Just one was all it too. The poison that coated the outside of the apple, and the toxins within acted their purpose.

The boy spasmed before falling to the floor of the dining room, a cold corpse faced up and red eyes open. 

“Clean this up.” The stepmother said to the groundskeeper who had grown more hysterical by the moment. 

“Hide it in the gardens or the woods. It’s your job.” She said. 

“Don’t you mean the gardener should do this instead?” Frank quaked, wanting nothing to do with this, though by this time he had. The apple was from the grounds he tended and he had gotten it for the Lady to prepare though he knew what it would be used for, and had not warned the boy. 

Frank realized he did feel something that was like guilt. The boy was once a baby that had done nothing wrong except for being born the way he was, with such freakish serpentine eyes that unsettled everyone that saw him. But when a nursemaid would try to cradle him by a sunny window he would scream, and many complained of how icy Tom was, of how it was like holding a stillborn, and he could not be warmed for he disliked the sun. Somehow he had managed to survive and grow to be a child but that was when things moved of their own violation when he was around. Incidents happened. It’s good to be rid of Tom’s presence Frank reasoned. Frank also thought of the very significant raise he would receive and felt less awful. 

“You’re the groundskeeper.” The stepmother said impatiently. “Do your job and bury it before Lord Riddle gets back from horse-riding. Surely you’ll find some use for it. It would make good compost.” 

“I-I’ll need a sack, like the kind I put the dead leaves in - ” Frank began, trying to find some excuse to leave. He needed it to discretely transport the body and he knew where such things were kept but the Lady didn’t so surely he should be the one to go and - 

The stepmother had already quickly left the room while Frank spoke, locking it from the outside so that Frank was left with the body. 

He wailed in despair, trying to avoid looking at it. It was an awfully small corpse.

The boy was an ill-omen from the start, Frank reminded himself. There was so much wrong with him. The mother died shortly after giving birth to him and Lord Riddle clearly hated his son even if he let it be known that Tom would be the lord of the estate after him. Furthermore, Tom was more active at night and stayed inside during the day. The hired help cherished sunny times for what they were and also because they wouldn’t see him much during those times because of his avoidance of the outdoors on such days.

Poor poisoned to death wretch. Frank thought. May God have mercy on your soul. Though Frank doubted it. 

There was sudden movement. 

Frank saw a flash of metal and soon found himself cut by the shears he had set down earlier. There was no time to react. Tom was stronger and faster though Frank was an adult man and Tom a child. 

“Monster!” Frank screamed horribly, disbelief coloring his screams. Blood coated his jacket, his pants, boots, gloves. Then, he was still. 

Tom spat out the vile bite of apple that had killed him - but had not succeeded permanently because well, he had stood up again and murdered the groundskeeper. 

Tom stared at his bloodied hands. He still moved in the world. 

It was impossible. But here he was, around to think of it as such. 

Tom pondered at how accurate Frank’s last word was. Just having killed someone, he thought of killing another. His stepmother. But that seemed rather too soon. It was a cliche but revenge was best served cold - very cold. He still hoped she would wisen up. He didn’t want much - food at the very least. 

Oh, Frank’s blood was still warm and on his hands. Tom was hungry.

Just a taste… Tom thought. 

No. 

Tom’s snobbish nature, which he had inherited from his father, saved him at that moment. No, he was not going to taste the blood of this disgusting man. He needed something better. Another day. Someone would come, he hoped. Blood he would be pleased to drink. Worthy blood. 

Tom’s other name was whispered under his skin. He understood it better now for he had experienced and acted in a manner worthy of it. Lord Voldemort. The one who would fly and steal away from death itself. 

He wasn’t dead, the groundskeeper was. 

Tom had lost his life, had come back, and had commit his first theft of a life. 

Tom thought he would like a trophy for this. 

The grounds were his now. He thought of starting a garden.


	3. Chapter 3

More winters passed.

Tom was thirteen, at the beginning of teenagerhood, and he resembled his father at that same time in his life - utterly handsome. Except while Tom Riddle Sr’s eyes were dark, Tom’s were as red and snake-like as ever. 

Currently, said eyes were set on the red roses that grew in the garden he cultivated. The garden was in a withdrawn, outlying area of the manor, close to the area of the woods where the shack his mother had lived in was. 

Occasionally, his eyes drifted to the glowing full moon that hung overhead. 

He had a feeling that something would happen on a night such as this. 

His feeling was proved right moments later. 

There was movement - then he noticed it. A garden snake had even warned him in the hissing language that Tom could understand and speak himself. 

Within Tom, Lord Voldemort recognized the creature that was could be enemy, rival, or ally of the creature he himself was, that he shared similarities with. Both flourished in the night, both wanted blood, both could be damaged by heirloom silver. 

There was a _werewolf_ in his garden. 

Unlike the werewolf, as a being that needed to be invited into buildings, Tom was sensitive to such an invasion of his garden. When he was little and his father had still bothered and tried to get him to socialize with other children, Tom couldn’t step past the threshold and into a house until the mother of the child Tom was suppose to talk to had said he needn't be shy and should enter. The meeting had gone badly once the child had thrown blocks at him, commenting on his red eyes. Tom had thrown back with his budding powers and later he could honestly say to his father that he had not touched a single block with his hands. Now Tom Riddle Sr didn't try to get Tom to make friends or even speak to the boy himself. 

Tom thought being alone suited him fine and he was hateful of his present company. 

The werewolf was upon the flowerbed and grasping the roses between its jaws.

Tom was angry though he knew why the werewolf was taking his flowers. Werewolves desired bloodshed so Tom wasn’t surprised his fine garden had attracted one. It wasn’t the first time Tom’s garden had attracted something strange. It must have recognized the roses for what they were and how close they were to what it wanted, for the roses Tom kept were watered with the blood of his enemies - the fools that his stepmother had thrown gold coins at. Not a one had succeeded in assassinating him and now Tom thought distantly that a werewolf would be capable. 

But the werewolf did not attack Tom for it recognized on some level that he was not to be messed with, the future Dark Lord that would have to be bowed down to. 

The werewolf gathered the roses in its jaws and then left. 

An insane fury was building in Tom’s mind. 

He was the one who stole, not the one who was stolen from! He had an entire box of trinkets filled with prizes from the corpses of the assassins he had bested. A favorite dagger, a frayed luck charm (that had not helped much), a photo of a pet, a lock of a sweetheart’s hair, a pair of loaded die… 

But now a bunch of his roses were gone. _His roses._

What would a werewolf want with roses? A thought entered Tom’s mind. It had to be for someone else then. But who? Who were the roses picked for? 

He decided to set his sights set on the unknown recipient. They would belong to him, an equal exchange. Roses for their entire being. That would be the price of trespass, of theft. Tom would get recompense. He swore it on that day he had bitten the apple and died. 

Tom worked the rest of the night, spitefully destroying the rest of the roses rather than letting anyone else steal them. More would always grow as long as the ground was fertilized.


	4. Chapter 4

Remus Lupin had alot on his mind, therefore it couldn’t be avoided that the werewolf had a hard time keeping his human conscious that full moon night though he usually had full grasp of his senses. 

His friend, Sirius Black had reached a new stage in his illness, an undeniable, irreversible stage that resulted in Remus being hit with the full unfiltered realization that Sirius would die. Remus already knew for awhile now but he had held onto denial until that moment and heavy grief had blanketed him.

That night Remus thought about how he had to get away from Sirius and Sirius’ godson, Harry Potter, who was as pained as Remus about Sirius’ state.

Sirius had found Harry when the orphan boy was seven and living with his mother’s aunt and her family, the Dursleys. Sirius had been outraged to find out that Harry had been living in a cupboard, woefully neglected and virtually a servant. Sirius had quickly moved to take Harry into his care as his legal godfather. It had taken Sirius the time he did to find Harry because in those years he had been struggling against his family at the historical house, Grimmauld Place, and even suffering jail time. 

Sirius had invited Remus with him to traveled abroad together while Sirius avoided his family or waited for them to destroy each other while he was out of sight. Sirius had not told Remus that Harry would be brought along too but once there it was too late for Remus to leave. 

They had traveled for four years and in those four years Harry had slowly come out of his shell with the care of his guardian. Remus too had grown close with the thin excuse Sirius had put upon him of being responsible for Harry’s education as a Potter and therefore a member of a family with a legacy of slaying Dark creatures. Because of this, in an educational context or not Harry would always call Remus “Professor” or “Professor Lupin”, and it was not a sign of distance but of fondness. 

“Really - me, teaching Harry? About Dark creatures?” Remus had asked Sirius incredulously. 

Sirius had grinned. “There’s no better candidate.” 

Besides avoiding Sirius’ blood relatives, another reason they had gone abroad was because that’s where Dark creatures would be around. Strangely, two years before Harry was born there was a sudden and very noticeable drop in the amount of Dark creatures near Little Hangleton such that there was more in outside lands. One of Remus’ concerns was researching the cause of this discrepancy. He had agreed to leave to places where there were more and not less because a low _quantity_ did not mean less danger. It could mean the opposite. Less could mean that a smaller bunch were Dark creatures of high _quality_. So he had agreed on avoiding Little Hangleton. 

And now they were moving back to Sirius’s ancestral home, Grimmauld Place in Little Hangleton because of his illness. By then the remnants of the family he was born into were dead, jailed or elsewhere and the house that Sirius had loathed was empty. There was a certain madness that ran in the family that Sirius knew he was not exempt from. 

Sirius knew he would soon join his deceased relatives. But before then of foremost importance to him was securing Harry’s future. 

The Dursleys were still interested in Harry. Not in his welfare but in his fortune. It was a likelihood that once Sirius died, Harry would have to return to his vile uncle, unsympathetic aunt and bullying cousin. 

Sirius had told Remus that he wanted what was best for Harry and that was why he wanted Harry to be in Remus’ care. He wanted his found family to be kept together. 

They were a strange family, and Remus couldn’t disagree with Sirius saying that they were one, but when he passed did he really expect Remus to be entrusted with Harry’s life? Remus could not understand it. Why Sirius acted like Remus could be trusted as if he wasn’t some dangerous creature. It was one thing for Remus to be around if Sirius was, but after - for Remus, a werewolf, to be the sole caretaker?

He argued with Sirius about this matter and Remus did not yield though Sirius was sick and Harry himself said he did want Remus to be a second godfather. 

Remus had worried so much, about many things. Considering all this, Remus’ mind had been in turmoil. It had been a bad night to transform and the morning was unpleasant too. 

He had trouble remembering the night though he was sure he had not hurt anyone. 

Remus had not paid attention to where he was going that night except that it had to be away from Sirius and Harry. He had ended up near a manor.

The scent of blood had drawn him there, the source a rose garden. He vaguely recalled seeing a boy. The boy looked unusual - ebony black hair, snow white skin and blood red eyes. Even in his reckless werewolf form Remus had felt fear. 

That boy had not seemed scared of Remus, but instead offended by him. Remus paid him less attention though his instincts told him the boy was dangerous. He had felt a pull, an allegiance even. 

He had still been thinking about his loved ones and upon sighting the roses he had thought of taking one to give to Harry. Something to comfort him with. There were so, so many. Surely, the gardener would not mind if he took one or a few? 

Remus should not be faulted for werewolves are greedy creatures, as was the roses’ caretaker, when he scooped up more roses than he had intended. 

He had held the roses in his jaws and the thorns hurt. It cut and bled him but he still held much in his jaws. Carrying it this way wasn’t the best way to transport roses but that was the only way in his form. Many fell throughout the night until at the end there was only one left to give Harry in the morning. 

“I’m glad you’re back safe.” Harry said, not asking where Remus had gone for the night nor what he had done. He just sounded glad he would not suddenly lose both the adults in his life. There was an unspoken plea for Remus not to leave. 

Remus couldn’t answer properly but he brought out the surviving rose for Harry. 

As Remus handed Harry the rose he recalled the stench of death in the garden, though at the time to his werewolf brain it had been an aroma. 

It was too late to take back what was offered. 

Harry accepted it. 

Harry breathed in its scent. “Thank you.” He said quietly, genuinely sounding like the flower had brought him comfort. 

But what comfort was there? Remus thought. Sirius was still dying. 

This was what Remus thought, not knowing how he had turned the wheel of Fate. 

—

At the time Tom had his encounter with the werewolf in his garden, his stepmother had been in her secret room, consulting her magic mirror. 

It was an old, ornate thing, golden framed and claw footed - tall and large enough so the stepmother could see her entire self while facing it. 

Years ago, she had asked it and the mirror had told her that her stepson was dangerous and death would happen around him. 

She was around him so she knew she had to do something. 

She could have had it, a wealthy and handsome Lord Riddle, but no, he had to have a ghastly son that would cause her trouble. 

She had not tried anything personally since she had first failed to kill him that time with the apple. 

She recalled how she had come back with a sack. It had taken her far too long, because she did not know where the sacks were kept and perhaps a part of her knew and was scared that her plan had not been successful after all. 

Upon reentering the room, the dead body on the ground had not been Tom Riddle but Frank Bryce. 

“He shouldn’t have ran with shears.” Tom said. He had shrugged - a careless, almost cute gesture done by a child. 

Fearful, she had dropped the sack and ran away. 

Following that Tom had taken over Frank’s privileges and some of his duties. The grounds were effectively his, with special attention given to a rose garden he had set up. 

The stepmother knew what the garden was for. 

It was unsettling and full of snakes. More than there were in an average garden. 

It was full of roses, and the more she failed as the people she hired disappeared, the more the roses appeared. 

The stepmother now asked the mirror - the attempt with the candied apple, how had she failed? Why was he alive?

“He is hard to kill,” the mirror said. “Because while his name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, he has another name - Lord Voldemort.”

The stepmother became very frightened upon hearing that name come from the mirror. 

She had to kill him. Had to before he was of age to gain the lordship so the lands would be hers and not her stepson’s. Had to, before he killed her first. 

“Are there any solutions at all?” She asked the mirror to think harder. If there were any new avenues to explore. Something that would stand a better chance then the people she had sent so far.“ Is there anyone, anything that can kill…You-Know-Who?” She refused to hear that name being said again. 

“There is a family of hunters who have destroyed Dark creatures for generations.” The mirror said. “The heir of the family is back in Little Hangleton at last after some years abroad. Set him upon the young lord’s path and you will have your resolution.”

The stepmother grinned manically. She had hope.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry’s uncle, Vernon Dursley, had heard that Harry Potter, with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were back in Little Hangleton. Vernon was in town, having arrived from Little Whinging.

He had heard that the Lady that lived in the huge manor in town was calling for the Potters. Harry was the only Potter, but Vernon was already thinking of how he could get gold out of what ever reason she wanted to summon a Potter for a visit to the manor. 

Harry was speaking with Remus while Vernon waited impatiently outside Grimmauld place. 

Remus did not want Harry to go at all but Harry shook his head. 

“I can’t let Uncle Vernon represent my family.” Harry said, for his uncle had wanted to go himself. Harry was a small boy. He would not be taken seriously alone and would need an adult to accompany him there. Harry was already unlocking the door to outside. 

Sirius was ill and could not go with Harry. Remus was not in good health either, and needed to rest himself and watch Sirius. Harry told Remus to make sure that Sirius took his medicine, even as the man had reached the point of complaining about the uselessness of it all. 

Harry tried to build his case. There would be lots of other people at the manor. Witnesses. His uncle would not do anything outright. 

“That doesn’t make me feel better that you are trying to be convincing.” Remus said.

Harry’s uncle, tried of waiting, chose that moment to open the door and barge in, complaining about the delay. 

At that time, Sirius had shown up as well, having labored to get out of bed since he heard Vernon was around. Harry and Remus had not noticed because they were caught up in their disagreement.

Sirius immediately issued a threat. Vernon would regret it if he dared to harm Harry at all, on the way to and back from the manor or inside of it. 

Vernon in turn, sneered, commenting that Sirius looked like a sick dog that should be put down any day now. 

Several things happened at once. 

Harry tried to attack his uncle. Sirius’ retort turned into a cough.

Remus was the responsible adult as he held Harry back while holding back his own anger, and catching Sirius, who could not keep on his feet for too long after all. 

Harry was furious, but conscious of Remus’ health, and did not struggle or jostle him too much because of the strain Remus was already suffering. 

Vernon laughed but it died upon seeing the dangerous, warning look in Remus’ eyes, like that of a wild animal’s. 

“We are leaving now.” Vernon said, quickly exiting the house. 

Harry did not follow immediately, but was released from Remus’ arm. 

Remus said that he would help Sirius back to his room. He would take care of Sirius but he will go looking for Harry if he was not back in a timely manner. He relented to Harry going to the manor. Vernon could not be allowed to represent the Potter family. 

Harry nodded. He had settled and found some calm as he said goodbye to his two parental figure before opening the door and leaving the house while Remus guided Sirius back to bed. 

Harry got into the waiting coach, escorted by a greedy and clueless uncle. 

—

The ride had been entirely silent. Neither of its occupants speaking to each other. 

Having arrived at the manor, Harry stepped outside. He was glad for the comfort of a warm sun out, though the ground was covered in snow. 

He looked. The manor was indeed large - excessive even, and foreboding. 

Surprised by the sight, Harry reached for the small bag in a pocket of his cloak. The petals of the rose Professor Lupin had given to him a day ago had already been falling off. It was mangled like a beast had gotten to it, but was still so dreadfully beautiful that Harry didn’t want to dispose of it. He had moved the petals to a small bag that morning and now carried it with him. 

In the morning, Harry had also adjusted the silver cross he wore around his neck, it had been passed down to him from his mother and Remus periodically reminded Harry that it was imperative he constantly wore it, explaining that it was an exceptional object that would shield him from Dark creatures. 

Harry had asked Remus where the rose came from and he had reluctantly told him it was from a garden of the manor. 

“Do not step foot in that place.”

“Why not?”

Just don’t go. Remus had wanted to say. He was tired and not recovered from his transformation and he knew such an answer was inadequate. Harry was like his father James, and also like Sirius, two people Remus had spent plenty of time around, and he knew if he said don’t do the thing - it would be done. 

“There were a lot of snakes there.” Remus had said finally, recalling that there were. “Some of them could be poisonous.”

“Oh.” Harry had said, seemingly accepting that as a reasonable explanation for why he was forbidden to visit the garden. 

Remus had internally sighed in relief. Crisis averted. 

Remus had tried to get the rose back even though it would look bad, like he was too desperate to take back what had already been given. 

He had held out a wrapped bar to Harry, somewhat intending Harry to trade the rose for it but instead Harry took the item Remus held out and placed it in the same pocket as the bag. 

Remus had accepted the rose could not be taken back after all. 

—

“Hurry up, boy.” Vernon said. He did not bother addressing Harry by name. He referred to Harry as “boy” or “freak” or “it”. He did not care at all that the small boy was struggling with the snow. No hand was offered. 

“You’re wasting time.” Vernon warned again. “You unnatural - ”

“Careful, uncle.” Harry said. “As an adult you should watch your reputation and how you address a child.” 

Harry was emboldened for while he lived with Remus and Sirius they had treated him as an equal and with respect. Harry had self-esteem now. It had been built up by Remus’ praise when Harry did something correctly and encouragement when he struggled or failed. To be encouraged and not physically or verbally abused when failing at a task had surprised Harry, who had grown up with the Dursleys before. Sirius, unlike the Dursleys, was friendly to Harry and expressed pride in him. Harry’s self-esteem was stable because outside of the poisonous Dursleys household there was no cousin and his gang to destroy it through calling him names. Harry knew his worth and he would not be talked down to or belittled and mocked. 

Uncle Vernon’s face turned red and his hand twitched. 

Harry wondered if he would be struck, and it wouldn’t be the first time his uncle struck him. 

But the manor had a number of staff and Vernon didn’t do anything outright with so many witnesses. He had a semblance of a reputation to maintain. 

Harry tried to calm down and subconsciously reached for the petals in his pocket. Having found it, his hands curled around the bag. Somehow it had worked, despite Remus’ warning about the garden the rose had come from. Harry relaxed. 

They were guided by one of the staff through the large manor’s staircases and hallways and Harry could observe the wealth shown through the furniture present. It was luxurious and not very homelike, reminding him of how most of Grimmauld Place looked like except for the area that was Sirius’ poster covered bedroom or the rooms he influenced that had the fancy furnishing banished to the basement or attic and instead was filled with items like cozy beanbag chairs and a foozball table. 

The Lady of the manor’s room were even more absurd and gilded than the other parts of the house and the sunlight coming in through the windows glittered off the decor and the large chandelier overhead. There were people present. Servants and nobles alike were gossiping about Harry and his uncle’s arrival. 

“Where is Sir Potter?”

“Is that him? He’s not how I imagined a knight would look like.” 

Vernon’s cowardly face, uninspiring posture, and a bearing familiar with hitting to bully and not to defend was indeed unknight-like. 

“Who is that? Some kind of servant-boy in training? His skin’s rather dark - ”

Harry ignored it and did not outwardly show discomfort. 

The Lady approached Harry and Vernon. 

“Sir Potter?” She tried to beam at Vernon, her expression confused. “Welcome to the manor!” 

“No,” Harry interrupted. “This is Mr. Dursley, my aunt’s husband.” 

“Oh.” The Lady could not hide her disappointment quick enough and it had showed. 

Her attention shifted and she looked at Harry, who had spoken. “How precious. And this is?” She was reaching out a hand to touch Harry’s hair. 

Harry frowned and stepped aside, though he was aware of himself and bowed slightly for she was the Lady of the manor. Still, his bow was rather sarcastic. 

“Harry James Potter.” Harry said. “Sir James Potter was my father. I am his son.”

“You’re Potter?” Her eyes lit up viciously. 

Harry was unsettled, more so when her mouth twitched into a slight frown. 

“You are rather young.” She said. Harry Potter did not look powerful. Could he really be the one to destroy her problem? 

The frown was carefully flattened into an unconvincing smile. “You remind me of my stepson.” The Lady said. “He is around your age, a couple of years older.” 

“A son, you say?” Vernon said, not pleased with being ignored. “Why don’t you send my nephew off to visit him while we discuss business as the adults?” 

“A good idea.” The Lady said with disturbingly keen interest. “Yes, you must see my stepson!” She called for a servant. 

Harry had an increasingly uneasy feeling.


	6. Chapter 6

The Lady had ordered the summoned servant to lead Harry to a wing of the manor that seemed to be located in a section the furthest from hers while she and his uncle stayed there, probably now talking about whatever two horrible people talked about. She was horrible. Harry was sure of his first impression of her. 

Vernon had announced that he would speak with the Lady, and discuss with her the details of what could be offered for Harry’s time. It had outraged Harry that his uncle was trying to get gold out of sending Harry to wherever a scared-looking servant was reluctantly leading him, but he had been all but pushed by the Lady into the direction he was now at. 

Once Harry had been left at the threshold of the place, the servant had fled. Harry supposed he would have to find the Lady’s stepson but the manor was large and he had been left without a guide. 

The part of the manor Harry had been abandoned at was different from the rest of the well-decorated manor. There was no gold but instead unadorned bricks and empty walls. 

Harry thought then, of a house that appeared well-furnished and clean because of the vain, careful image that a homemaker tried to project with a place that held green, not too exotic plants, tasteful framed art and charming wallpaper; but if one looked into the cupboard under the stairs of that very same house it was not at all like the rest of the house because there was no plants, no framed art, and no wallpaper, but instead dust, cobwebs and spiders. 

To Harry, this entire forlorn wing of the manor might as well be the same as a little cupboard. The feeling was similar and he felt the weight of sorrow. 

Harry explored. A while later he came to a door and he would not have been able to explain why he had chosen it out of the many there were, but he had. It wasn’t locked. There a crack between the door and the frame it wasn’t fully closed onto. 

A look inside revealed that it was a huge library, filled with shelves, but strangely empty of people and quite dark except for a small lit oil lamp. 

Every single window was strangely covered by heavy, dark cloth.

Because his hands were restless and he had just wanted something to do, Harry walked in and impulsively pulled aside the closest window. 

It was sunny when Harry had entered the manor and it was still sunny then. 

The amplified sunlight which had reflected off the snow, pierced through his glasses, startling him. Harry groaned in compliant.

His reaction was mild compared to the reaction of the room’s other occupant.

There was the sound of a body hitting the floor and an agonized scream, from a boy that sounded that he was being burned alive. It was loud compared to the fainter sound of a diary falling to the ground, its pages fluttering. 

“Close it!” The boy shrieked, alternating between gesturing wildly in the direction of the window, quill in that hand, while the other clutched his face. 

Harry did so quickly, making full use of his fast reflexes and returning the room to its former darkness. 

Harry felt awful and guilty, unsure of how to approach the other child though he knew he had to. Harry was afraid to touch him, not because of what the boy might do but because Harry had the irrational fear that if he touched the boy, the flesh would continue to burn and suffer agony. 

That was unlikely, but hadn’t Harry just caused him suffering? Though that had been the sunlight, Harry was sure. But he had opened the window. It was bizarre to him, such a reaction to sunlight. 

There was no one else that could help, the surrounding areas had been clearly deserted. 

Harry would not run. He was no coward; and the incident had been his fault. 

Unsure of what to do, Harry walked up to the boy and picked up the fallen diary. 

The boy had not gotten up. Maybe he was not ready to?

Harry knelt and waited, one hand on the boy while the other held the book out over the boy’s hands. 

He waited for the other boy to grasp it because if he didn't and Harry let go, it would fall. The boy seemed aware of this intention for he gripped it at last and Harry helped him to his feet.

Harry was surprised by how astonishingly cold the boy was, so he took off his cloak and threw it around the other boy, who was using his recovered diary to hide his face. 

Harry lead him to a seat. 

—

Tom saw well in the dark. He had been in the library, avoiding the sun and minding his own business.

He had been absorbed in writing in his dairy, sketching and planning out an expansion for his garden. He had been jolting down notes. His roses…alot were growing and he needed more space for them. He also had to rebuild the garden after his fit a night ago. 

He was doing this when all of a sudden he had been struck by blinding sunlight. Sunlight alone could not kill him, and he could bear it, but he had not expected the strong and sudden burst. 

It had hurt terribly.

He immediately wondered if his stepmother was behind it. He wondered what twit she had hired. 

He became vaguely aware that the person in the room was a child. That shocked him. A child assassin now? Plenty of adult assassins had tried to kill him since he was seven but this was new. He could kill another child. He would. He would kill the fool and feed the remains to his roses. 

These were Tom’s thoughts but he was surprised as the person had not yet tried to flee or finish Tom off. Instead Tom heard the sound of his diary being picked up. He felt a warm hand and could feel the weight of the diary displacing the air above his hands. 

Tom frowned but realized the other child was waiting for Tom to accept it. He did. After that, the child had helped Tom to his feet. 

Not only had the child given Tom back what was his, but followed the action by giving Tom an item that was clearly the child’s own - a warm cloak. Tom inhaled its scent and caught parchment, chocolate, and medicine. The first reminded him of his diary, the second was pleasing, and last should have been unpleasant but instead Tom found himself soothed by it all. 

Then, Tom had been guided to a seat. 

Tom sat up and opened his eyes, but opened his diary, carefully angling it so that he could continue to use it to hide crimson irises. 

“I only picked it up and closed it.” The child said. It was a boy’s voice. “I didn’t read anything.” He sounded embarrassed and worried Tom would think he had invaded his privacy. 

Tom almost laughed. Was that really was the boy’s main concern when there was so much more wrong? His intrusion into Tom’s library, opening the windows, touching Tom’s diary in the first place, touching Tom…

He couldn’t read anything even if he wanted to, Tom thought smugly. The diary wasn’t decipherable to anyone but Tom because he wrote in the written form of the hissing language he used to communicate with the snakes in his rose garden. There was no way someone else could understand it. 

The other boy had seated him onto a sofa in the library. Tom knew it was long sofa, easy enough for the other boy to sit anywhere else but instead the boy sat right next to him, their thighs touching. Tom could feel not just the warmth from his cloak but also the warmth of his body. 

“There’s a fireplace.” Tom told the child. Tom had realized he may have been cold. Tom pointed it out.

“Oh.” The boy got up and Tom was immediately disappointed by the loss of direct contact. Tom watched as he walked to the fireplace with the room’s oil lamp in hand. He worked the fireplace with the proficiency of someone used to such a chore. 

Tom noted that he was older than the boy, who had disorderly black hair. 

It did not take the younger boy long to get the fire going and with that light around, Tom gave a quick glance over his diary to sight brown skin and green eyes framed by round glasses. 

Harry, who was by the fireplace, thought he saw red but it was just a moment and then it was gone. He frowned and returned to his seat by the boy who had his cloak. Once again their sides were touching. 

“Is something wrong?” Harry asked. 

“No.” Tom lied. He did not want the boy to see his face, to see his eyes and flee like everyone else did. 

Harry was disbelieving. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” Harry said, thinking about the how he had pulled aside the cloth that covered a window. He’s heard Professor Lupin say to apologize if he was in the wrong, though the lesson was directed towards Harry’s godfather, who had proceeded to argue that he was not in the wrong. 

The words and their sincerity shocked Tom, who had never ever heard those words before, not from his stepmother, and not from any of the people she had sent to kill him over the years. 

Tom shivered though the cloak he wore was pleasantly warm. 

“Okay, you’ve apologized. You can leave now.” Tom said. The boy should be honored. Tom did not simply let people go. Tom thought it would be better that he left on Tom’s terms rather than the boy running once he saw Tom’s red, serpentine eyes. 

“I can’t simply leave. You have my cloak.” The younger boy said. “Are you really fine?”

“Yes, I am fine.” Tom said, at the limits of his patience. “I am well enough to do this!”

With quill in hand, Tom attacked him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU so I won’t outright call somethings what they are (This is a Dementor, this is Inferi, etc) but it should hopefully be clear from context.

During Harry’s most unsettling Dark creature encounter, he had first felt the presence of it before he saw it. He had been eight, traveling with Sirius and Remus. 

The air had grown chilly and Harry’s limbs heavy. He had strayed away while Remus was discussing the route on a map with Sirius and that small frame of time was all it took. 

There was something different and apart from the night sky - a tall, hooded creature in a tattered black cloak that made itself known with its influence on the atmosphere. 

Harry had shivered and it had been fortunate he was wearing his mother’s silver cross. Because of that the creature had kept a distance away but still Harry’s emotions had turned negative and he had felt he was back in the cupboard under the stairs of his aunt’s house.

Remus had rushed to protect Harry and intervened with the light from an old-looking silver candelabra. The creature had fled. 

Once they were safely inside, Remus had broken apart pieces of chocolate for Harry and himself. It helped return Harry to his equilibrium. Following that, Harry had asked to learn more about what he had just seen and Remus had obliged. 

It had been a wraith that feasted on happiness and souls. 

Harry discussed it with Sirius too. It was Sirius’ most disliked Dark creature and Harry felt the same. After the experience Harry had a heavier sense of his duty as a Potter. 

Now, he was unknowingly back in town, where the ultimate Dark creature lived. 

—

Harry recognized that the other boy was about to attack him. His instincts had alerted him to it. Because of his time in the Dursley household, Harry could read danger. 

He had to because it was the difference between being hit or not, to be sent to the cupboard without dinner or not. His instincts knew from experience, from dealing with his cousin and his cronies, his uncle, his aunt. Harry could sense the mood of others, and comprehended when he was about to be attacked. He could feel the shift in the air. This saved him from being killed instantly. 

The boy had attacked Harry with the quill he still had in his hand. Harry manged to dodge and deflect the attack so his throat wasn’t stabbed, but now the quill was above his face. 

Tom was angry, and strong, and in return for his eyes that had suffered from the burning sun, the older boy was now trying to go for Harry’s eyes with his sharp quill. Not only was Tom angry, he was confused. He should have finished off the smaller boy by now but it was as if something was weakening him. 

Harry could not push Tom’s hand away. But Harry was protected by his glasses. A quill couldn’t break through it even if the taller boy was strong. Or so Harry thought, until there was a noticeable crack. 

_Shit_. Harry thought. He found himself thinking of Remus telling him not not to swear, and accusing Sirius of having taught Harry. That was not inaccurate, but Sirius did not do it on purpose, he just had a weaker filter. And Harry sometimes listened to Remus talk with Sirius, when the two thought they were alone, and Remus swore too. Harry thought sadly that he would not see them again if the crazy boy he was struggling against killed him. 

Harry tried to fight back and the quill went higher, now it was over his forehead. The boy was stronger, pushing down and Harry couldn’t throw him off. The quill was disturbingly sharp and Harry felt pain. By now it had certainly broken the skin on his forehead and the boy above him was dragging the quill down. Harry felt it, along with a jerk to the side, and the quill was still cutting him. The quill was being pulled down again. 

The more of Harry’s blood Tom spilled, the more determined he became. 

Harry didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t. There was just the silver cross around his neck. He desperately unpinned and swung it. Maybe he could hit the boy in the eyes with it. If the pain was enough to get the boy to back away, maybe Harry could escape. 

With it, Harry once again seared Tom’s flesh.

Tom screamed and recoiled and Harry took the chance to flip the boy to the ground. 

Harry had the cross wrapped around his hand. He was rattled and sitting on Tom’s legs. He was holding the diary again, with the hand that held the cross, pressing the book to Tom’s chest like a shield, like Tom wouldn’t rip through it to get at Harry. 

Harry was right. 

Tom trembled in rage. The boy was touching his diary again. Tom wondered how could he kill the boy without destroying his diary or getting injured by the silver again.

“Stop trying to hurt me.” Harry demanded, his voice unsteady. 

“You started it.” Tom growled. The smell of blood was intoxicating. It smelled wonderful and it was unfortunate it came from someone who was utterly making things difficult for Tom. 

“You’re older than me, but you’re so _immature_.” Harry complained. 

“Oh, and you aren’t?” Tom retorted. “Why don’t you be mature and get off my legs?”

“Because that doesn’t seem like a good idea yet.” Harry said. His eyes lit up as he thought of an action to take. “How about this?” Harry was still holding the diary but he reached with one hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bar, awkwardly unwrapping it.

He held it out to Tom. “A peace offering.” Harry said. 

Tom looked at the dark chocolate curiously. It smelled sweet but there was also faintly the familiar fragrance of roses. There was still a bump in the boy’s pocket which would suggest there were other items inside. 

Could it be…? Tom wondered. The chocolate and roses disturbed the scent of blood. It gave him pause. He would not resume attacking Harry. 

“Get off me.” Tom said. 

“Promise you won’t try to attack me again.”

“I won’t.” Tom said grudgingly. He dropped his quill. 

—

Remus was hurrying toward the manor upon Sirius’ insistence and their mutual worry over Harry. 

Too much time had passed. 

They shouldn’t have allowed Harry to go with Vernon. 

Remus’ instincts told him something was off and he couldn’t ignore it. 

—

The chocolate was being shared with Tom when they were seated again but to his disappointment, this time the boy did not sit as close. Tom could not blame him. Tom’s diary was back in his hands. 

“I just attacked you and you offered me chocolate.” Tom said. 

“I did start it.” The green-eyed boy said, gesturing at a covered window. 

Tom glanced at the blood drying in his forehead. Tom wanted to lick it very badly but instead he took the dark chocolate. 

It was rich and velvety, the texture satisfying. 

Tom vaguely wondered if it held poison, but the other boy was already eagerly digging into his half like he needed it to feel better after what had happened. 

Tom craved blood but for now chocolate was okay as substitute. Tom was a child after all and he had a fondness for sweets. He tried to not think about a candied apple from years past.

Tom wondered if the chocolate was so good because it was shared. Was this what normal children did, share chocolate with each other? It was a strange, alien feeling. 

“Where did you get the chocolate from?” Tom asked, because he was curious about the origin of the treat and would like more for himself later. 

“My professor gave it to me.” Harry said. His professor who taught him about Dark creatures, and how to defend himself and others against them. Harry wasn’t about to tell this to someone who might be one. Harry could see the boy’s eyes now and they were red, and unusually shaped, like those of a snake’s. There was also the unnatural strength and aversion to sunlight. 

They ate in silence for a moment, then Harry spoke again. “May I know the name of the person I’m sharing chocolate with?” He asked. 

Tom finished a small triangle he had broken off before answering. “Tom Marvolo Riddle.” He said. 

The spectacled boy blinked. “Lord Riddle’s son.” He said slowly. 

“You’re his heir, the young lord of the manor. Why didn’t you tell me - my Lord?” Harry said, the title at the end was said with derision. He was annoyed he had been unknowingly rude to the person that the manor, the surrounding lands and much of Little Hangleton would one day belong to.

Tom nearly smiled. Now that was funny. “Just call me Tom.” Tom said, even as the other him protested. Lord was fine. It was the only acceptable thing to be called. “A first name basis is appropriate, considering what you have done to me and what I have done to you.” 

Tom stood over him and looked right into his eyes.

Harry did not look away, his green eyes stared back into red ones. 

“I’m not going to judge you by what you look like.” Harry said in the voice of someone tired of others judging him by his. “Your eyes - ”

“Only my eyes?” Tom laid a pale hand on the boy’s brown fingers. 

“Everything about you is weird.” 

How honest. “Now, I want to know your name.” Tom said. He wanted to know who was so daringly looking into his eyes. 

“Harry James Potter.” Harry said. “But just Harry is fine.”

Potter! That particular family? 

Lord Voldemort thought himself invincible and since the apple incident no one had gone as far as Harry James Potter did today in the amount of times and intensity by which Tom been hurt. Tom marveled at the truly interesting day he was having. He would need to write it down in his diary later.


	8. Chapter 8

Albus Dumbledore was currently trying to enjoy the weekend. 

His bowling shoes were on and he had a lemon flavored candy in his mouth. He had not yet picked up his bowling ball when a harried and upset looking man walked right into the path of his lane. 

“What are you doing?” The man asked Dumbledore, sounding quite miffed. 

“I am bowling.” Dumbledore answered calmly. 

“Bowling?” The man yelled. “Shouldn't you be doing something? About You-Know-What!”

Dumbledore reached into a pocket and offered a sweet to the man, who looked like he needed it. 

The man sighed and accepted it. “Please, Albus. Some people have gone down south to check the rumors for themselves…” The man tried again. “No one has returned. No one at all! Please do something to rid of the taint while it is still a child!”

“They are seeking him out?” Dumbledore frowned. “A child is still a child. He must be given a chance to change and grow.” He was the headmaster of a school and the children that attended were dear to him. Nothing was set in stone for all children had potential. Anything could happen.

“And when he is no longer a child and has not changed?” The man asked. “If he is a persistent evil?”

“Then,” Dumbledore said, his voice somber, “I will have to settle the matter...”

—

Harry looked from Tom’s eyes to the rest of his face. Tom was rather handsome, not in spite of his eyes but rather to Harry it was a part of it. 

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Harry Potter.” Tom said with a winsome smile and the proper air that befit a young lord. 

“I wished I could say the same, Tom Riddle.” Harry replied dryly.

All of Tom’s wounds seemed to have healed. His face was burn free, unblemished and handsome. There was no proof left of how Harry had damaged him. Meanwhile, Harry’s forehead was still smarting from Tom scarring him with the quill. He wanted to touch it but he knew that would just draw attention to it and Tom could look. As it was now his hair was already helpfully obscuring it. 

Nonetheless, Harry placed his hands over the top of Tom’s diary like he was making a pact over it. 

“Let’s be friends.” Harry announced. 

“Friends?” Tom echoed, surprised. 

“What, would you rather us be enemies?”

Enemies? Now that was interesting. But Tom shook his head. “Alright, let’s be friends.” Tom agreed, placing his hand over his diary too so that their hands touched. 

—

Vernon Dursley had been enjoying the beer and good food until he noticed that the Lady seemed to have imbibed too many glasses of wine.

She was spouting nonsense that he was laughing at. 

“You’re an insane kook is what you are.” Vernon said, failing to note that he had too many beers himself. Vernon was disbelieving the Lady’s ramblings about what her stepson was. 

Some kind of demon, a monster that could move objects and shadows by the force of his will alone. 

What a bunch of rubbish. Vernon didn’t believe it even if the other people in the manor and around town said similar things. 

“He’s evil, evil!” The Lady insisted. “I need your nephew’s help!” She sounded desperate and angry. She knew Vernon was mocking her and she hated it. 

Vernon was ready to walk away because he did not care for her craziness but she grabbed his arm. He still tried to leave and she followed. 

When they stepped out, they spotted Remus running down a hall. 

Simultaneously, the both of them decided to follow him. 

—

“Harry, I’ve found you!” The voice was filled with joyful relief. Harry recognized it as Professor Lupin. Remus faltered once he saw Tom. He noted the cracks on Harry’s glasses. 

“You - boy, you are always trouble!” This angry, intoxicated-sounding voice had to be his uncle’s. 

The Lady of the manor marched in. “I see you’ve found my son.” She said, also sounding inebriated. There was delight in beginning of sentence, but it had turned disappointed at the end, like she had stepped into the room and had not found what she wanted.

She flinched at the glare that Tom gave. 

She turned to Vernon, “You were leaving my manor? I don’t require your assistance.” She said. 

Vernon going to argue but Remus gave him a stern look. He also noticed that the other boy in the library besides his nephew, had red eyes. He felt fear and decided he had finish too many beers for it seemed like the eyes were slitted. 

He turned to flee and the Lady followed him with the excuse of needing to escort him out. 

With that, only Remus was left in the threshold of the library with Harry and Tom. 

Tom smiled dangerously. He recognized Remus. 

Remus too, recognized Tom.

Both of them pretended they were meeting each other for the first time. 

Harry immediately made introductions, informing Tom that the brown haired man was Remus Lupin and telling his professor in turn that the boy was Tom Riddle. 

Tom said he was pleased to meet Harry’s professor but quickly shifted the topic. Tom said he wanted to ask Harry something and that he wanted it to be a private conversation. 

“Could you wait outside the door?” Tom asked Remus. “I will return Harry - he’s quite free to leave, but first I must discuss something with him.”

Harry looked at Remus expectantly, waiting for him to leave and close the door behind him.

“It’ll just be a moment.” Harry said. 

Remus reluctantly walked out and closed the door. 

“What else is in your pocket? Besides the chocolate.” Tom asked. “I’m curious.” 

Harry was confused about why this conversation needed to be private but he still took out the small pouch of rose petals, opening it for Tom to see. 

Tom recognized the unmistakable look and aroma of his roses. 

“Can you give it to me?” Tom asked. 

Harry frowned, hesitating. Tom was his new friend but he did not want to give the petals over. In the short time he’s had the rose, he had grown attached to it. 

Tom had noticed the hesitation and it thrilled him. Harry treasured the rose. Good. He was deserving of it then.

“I’ll give it back.” Tom said assuringly. 

Harry was unsure of why Tom was taking them. Maybe he just wanted a closer look? Harry handed over the rose petals. 

Tom opened his diary on his lap before holding the bag over it upside down so that all the red petals would spill onto the black and white book. It was quite a portrait - the scarlet eyed, ink haired boy with his snow white skin, intent on his task. 

Tom closed his diary, pressing the petals between the pages as he did so, before returning the rose and giving his diary to Harry at the same time. Oh well, he would not be writing another entry in it after all. The diary was like a friend Tom had given his thoughts to. It had been his only friend in fact. But now that Harry was here Tom felt like he could part with the book. 

“See, now I have given you back the rose and my diary.” Tom said. 

Harry blinked, surprised by the gesture, but he accepted the book with the petals. 

Tom was satisfied that a rose from his garden had been properly gifted since he had taken it back and offered it to Harry.

After giving Harry his diary, Tom walked and opened the door to an obviously eavesdropping Remus. 

“It’s getting late. The night’s young and I’ll have things to do.” Tom smiled. “So you can leave for now, Harry. But I want us to meet again very soon. Tomorrow if possible. I’d want to show you my garden - though in its state now there’s admittedly not much to show.” 

“Sure. I’ll see you then.” Harry smiled back. 

Remus was the only one not smiling. He pulled out a spare pair of glasses from a pocket and gave it to Harry. He would ask later what happened to the pair that broke in the first place, though he suspected Tom was the reason. 

To Remus’ distress, Harry took off the broken pair and put on the new, but instead of handing the broken glasses to Remus he offered it to Tom. 

“It’s not the same…” Harry said. “But I wore those glasses for alot of days like you’ve surely written in your diary for alot of days so, um, it’s an exchange.” 

Tom’s mouth was a surprised little “o”. He accepted the glasses and pocketed it, not giving Remus a chance to take the item instead. He took off the cloak he wore and placed it back on Harry’s shoulders. Harry nodded and reached for Remus’ hand. 

Remus barely held onto his mask. He took the hand of his charge. 

They left the manor together.


	9. Chapter 9

No one knew where vampires came from but they were damned souls that hungered for blood.

It was an evil, soul scarring act, to drain the life of the living to the point of death, for the sake of extending their own lives. For immortality. 

Vampires had been extinct for six hundred years. 

—

Remus had overheard what Harry had discussed with Tom, and Harry was excitedly speaking of his budding friendship with Tom Riddle.

Remus should have been happy that Harry had made a friend. It was a worry that Sirius and him had not done enough in regards to Harry’s socialization, what with their constant travels impeding Harry developing lasting friendships. 

Now they were back in Little Hangleton and Harry already made a friend it would have been a good thing - if the friend was anyone except Tom. 

Harry had thanked Remus for the chocolate and informed him that he had shared it with Tom. It was all gone, the entire bar. Harry explained. 

Remus did not mind that it was already gone. It just unsettled him who Harry had shared it with. 

Harry mused aloud that Tom liked chocolate and that he wondered what other food Tom liked. 

Remus had a shadowy idea of what other substance Tom liked and it disturbed him. 

Harry opened Tom’s diary and smiled fondly at the petals nested in its pages. 

Remus had told him not to go to the garden the rose was from but Harry had already promised to visit. 

Harry glanced at the pages. Tom’s handwriting was squiggly and incomprehensible to him. Harry frowned slightly, realizing now that it was very personal for Tom to give him his diary and it was common sense that it was rude to read someone else’ diary so it was all the best that Harry could not understand the writings. He set the diary carefully down on the desk in his room. 

Remus shot the diary very noticeable glances but decided he would not touch it, though he felt guilty. It was Harry’s now and removing it would not help. He would notice. 

Harry mentioned that he would like to see Sirius before going to sleep and Remus agreed, following him. 

Remus immediately tried to get Sirius to side with him on the opinion that Harry should not see his new friend called Tom again.

“He scarred him, Sirius.” Remus said, pointing out the noticeable lightning bolt shaped scar on Harry’s forehead that had not been there this morning. What had happened except for Harry meeting Tom?

Harry for his part, fought hard on issuing forth his own opinion. It was from horseplay between two kids so it was to be expected. It wasn’t as if the scar was life-threatening. Just a very distinct mark on his forehead. 

“I gave Tom a mark or two as well.” Harry insisted. He left out that they had disappeared suspiciously fast. 

Sirius was elated Harry had made a friend and would hear nothing of Harry needing to avoid Tom. 

“You know, you gave me a scar when we first met, Remus.” Sirius said. 

“Yeah, and you two still became good friends!” Harry said, immediately taking his chance though this was his first time hearing about this. 

There was an awkward silence where Harry watched Remus and waited to see if he would deny it but Remus could not say he had not scarred Sirius. 

Harry’s expression was already triumphant. He was sure he would see Tom again. 

—

In the morning, Remus relented on letting Harry return and visit the manor but Remus insisted he would have to accompany him. 

Harry agreed but tried to tell Remus that Sirius should not be left alone too long. It would be enough for Remus to travel with Harry to the manor but once there Remus should leave Harry there for a couple of hours and then later return to pick him up. 

Remus immediately bristled at being told he should leave Harry alone with the young lord for hours. Harry mentioned it had already happened in the library. But here Remus also capitulated. He was really an enabler. 

He found out that the diary wasn’t going to be left in Harry’s room. The boy had taken to carrying it around with him, in the large pocket of a cloak that could hold it well. 

They arrived by coach to the manor.

There, Tom was already waiting. He was dressed in black and it was also the color of the open umbrella he held up against the cloudy sky. His hair was dark, his skin white and his eyes red. 

Tom smiled earnestly when he saw Harry exit the coach. He didn’t bother directing his smile at the thief that stepped out too, next to Harry. 

“Wonderful weather, isn’t it?” Tom said by way of small talk. 

“Yeah.” Harry said, not disagreeing. He glanced up at the clouds and smiled before looking at Tom again. He actually did like cloudy weather and he listed the reasons while Tom listened with interest. There was the anticipatory feeling in the air for the possibility of rain when he saw a nimbus, being able to see differently shaped clouds, and there were also the colors…

Tom offered a gloved hand and Harry took it with his own gloved hand without hesitation. 

Both of Tom’s hands were occupied. One held the umbrella and the other Harry’s hand. He would have waved goodbye at Remus mockingly. 

To his delight Harry was the one who waved goodbye with his free hand. “See you later, Professor Lupin!”

Tom supposed that the two had already discussed things before hand and Harry was allowed to be alone with Tom. 

Remus watched the two of them walk away, a monster holding the hand of the boy he thought of as a son. He bitterly despised himself then, what he was and his curse. The reason he had stumbled upon that evil place and stolen its roses, offending its master who had then proceeded to take an interest in the person the rose had gone to.


	10. Chapter 10

“Is your professor important to you?” Tom asked. 

These were the first words he had spoken since he and Harry had traveled a significant distance to reach the spot by the woods where Tom’s garden was kept. 

“Yes.” Harry said, admitting that Remus was like a father figure to him and that he not only received academic lessons but also lessons on life and how to carry himself in the world as a person. 

Harry also mentioned that at a time he had been behind on schooling and it had been with Remus’ tutoring that he not only caught up but excelled. 

Tom latched onto that piece of information, which Harry regretted admitting to - that at one point he had been at an education level lower than what was expected at an age. Tom wondered at the circumstances for this to be the case. 

Harry squeezed Tom’s hand to distract him and it had worked, surprising the older boy, who had been filled with thoughts about how unfortunate it was he could not get revenge against the trespasser easily since Lupin was important to Harry. 

Harry thought he had gotten Tom off the trail of questions Harry did not want to face but he had only delayed it. 

“There was another man yesterday. You uncle, was it?” Tom asked.

“My mother’s sister’s husband.” Harry said. 

Tom itched. There was some story here and he wanted to uncover it. But he had to do so carefully. Harry was unquestionably brave. He had come back and now he was holding Tom’s hand. But Tom had the feeling Harry would run not when faced with a scary monster but from personal questions and his past.

“Lupin is like a father to you, then, your biological father - ?”

“He and my mother passed away when I was an infant.” Harry said. “I had to live with my aunt’s family…my uncle and I didn’t get along. I was glad when my godfather Sirius, and Professor Lupin found me and I started living with them instead.” 

There was still so much unsaid, but Tom recognized that pain was there. 

His professor was offlimits but Tom wondered if he could possibly kill Harry’s uncle. 

No more talking of the past then. How about the future?

“What will you be in the future?” Tom asked. He was already imagining things himself, about him and Harry as adults, standing side by side, and what they could do together. “Have you thought about - ”

“A knight.” Harry interrupted, sounding certain and sure. 

Tom laughed softly. 

“What’s so funny?” Harry frowned. “Do you think I’m incapable or - ”

“No, you’re very capable. It’s just that your answer isn’t very surprising at all.” Tom said. “Your family - the Potters, are famous for producing knights.” 

“Then?”

“Nothing.” Tom said. “I believe in you.” It’s just that knights were known to kill monsters and it was easy to imagine a sword in Harry’s free hand, the one that wasn’t holding Tom’s. 

“We’re almost there.” Tom said.

They walked on.

—

They arrived to a rose garden that looked ninety-percent demolished, the deed done in a frenzy. There were headless stems everywhere and a bloodbath of red petals over the white snow and black soil. 

However, Harry could easily imagine how the garden would have looked in its full glory. He sighted a relatively whole rose and made the mental comparison. It was the like the one Remus had given him except looking less like it had been bitten ragged. 

He knew then that the petals in the pages of the diary he held in his pocket at this moment had come from the garden he stood in. He noted that there were the tracks of a large animal in the dirt of the garden. There were snakes underfoot. Harry was careful not to hurt any. He was indeed in the garden Remus had told him not to step foot in. 

“I like your garden.” Harry said. “And your roses.”

“I’m glad you appreciate it.” Tom said. “This is a secret place. I don’t just bring anyone here.” And he didn’t let people in easily. That werewolf had caught him offguard. If anyone was brought to the garden by Tom, before Harry, if was only if they were dead. 

Harry sat down on a stone bench and Tom joined him. Once again, they were sitting side by side. 

Harry thought about the dusty, gray halls of the manor he had wandered in until he had found the library. The part of the manor that reminded him of the cupboard he had left years ago. 

The garden, like Tom’s living quarters, seemed rather secluded and lonely. 

“How is it, living where you are?” Harry asked. 

“I live in a big manor.” Tom said arrogantly, like that would answer everything about the quality of his life. Harry could simply fill in the details with his imagination, if Tom lived in such a fancy place then…

“Just because you live in a big house doesn’t mean it’s happy place!” Harry said vehemently. 

Even Tom jumped slightly. 

Harry’s next words were softer, for he was embarrassed by his outburst. “I mean, my godfather grew up in a big house but it wasn’t much of a home to him. He didn’t get along with his family and disagreed with their belief that they were somehow better than everyone else because they were a old and noble family with lots of wealth. He hated living there.”

“Oh? How did he ever survive it?” Tom asked, genuinely curious. 

“I don’t know…but he did.” Harry said. “He couldn’t wait to get out of that place, and now we’re back.” Harry’s words had halted, like he had breached a subject he had not intended to. 

Tom awaited an explanation. 

“Because he’s got an incurable illness, and it’s in a late stage…it would be better for him to rest in a stationary place.”

Tom squeezed Harry’s hand, for Harry was confiding in him. He was upset about the impending loss of a parental figure. Tom could not relate to the feeling but he could tell that Harry was burdened. A bit of it had relaxed because he told Tom. Harry felt so much and so strongly. It was strange to Tom, who had numbed his own emotions for so long. 

Tom startled as something shot by, cutting Harry’s cheek. 

Tom had smelled the blood before Harry gasped and realized he had been hurt. 

Tom went on alert, readying a weapon in his hand. It was the sharp end of a headless rose. 

Harry didn’t doubt the of the practicality of the rose as a weapon when wielded by Tom’s hands, not when he recalled the quill that had cracked his glasses and cut his forehead. 

It didn’t take Tom long to find and drag out the sniper. Tom had already broken the arm that had fired the rifle. 

“Tom, stop it.” Harry said, because he was afraid Tom would rip off the man’s limbs. 

Harry was once again surprised by how strong Tom was. He could not push to stop him at all. 

“You’re hurt.” Tom said, his voice choked with rage at the assailant. “The bullet - ”

The man interrupted with a pained yell. He was begging. He said he had to children to feed and if he were gone they would be fatherless. Their tender lives needed his affection. 

“Don’t. Don’t make those children orphans.” Harry said, alarmed and pleading with Tom.

Tom had the man’s leg in his grip but he had not broken either yet. 

The man was apologizing to Harry, saying that his intended target had been Tom. He said Harry was precious, as were his own children. 

Tom scowled. It was awfully hypocritical. Children were precious yet Tom was not? Did he not count? 

“You’re a monster.” The man said. He warned Harry to step away. 

Harry did not react well to the hired killer’s statement. “Tom is a child too.” He said. “He’s deserving of food and affection and life as much as your children.” Harry insisted. “Don’t attack him or call him a monster.”

Tom was startled by Harry’s words. Did he really deserve all those things? He thought back to the time his stepmother had offered him the poisoned apple. How he had desperately wanted those things then, but all of it had been denied to him. Frank had called him a monster before Tom had killed him and ever since Tom had committed himself to being one.

Now, that commitment was being tested. 

Tom disarmed the man before he released him. 

The assassin fled. 

If Harry wasn’t here that man would have died. Both of them knew this. 

“The family may have just been a distracting lie.” Tom said. Tom didn’t think he could always let the people who made attempt on his life live. They would get bold and cocky. And the man had not hurt him, but Harry. Broken limbs weren’t enough. 

Harry didn’t answer. Instead he picked up the dropped umbrella and held it over Tom’s head. The sun was starting to peak out.


	11. Chapter 11

They maintained their friendship and Harry visited as often as he could, which was every other week, and sometimes more. Harry had his own duties and obligations and so did Tom but they enjoyed their time together in Tom’s library, sharing sweets but carefully keeping their hands clean when handling books. They traveled elsewhere though the stories and Tom listened avidly when Harry spoke of the places he had visited with his godfather and professor. 

Though Harry had asked, Tom did not allow Harry back into his garden after what had happened. Tom could not help but feel uneasy. It was a disgusting place, full of death. It wasn’t right to let Harry inside. Tom made excuses. It wasn’t ready and fixed after the fight that had taken place there, and therefore could not be visited. 

For Harry, Tom’s friendship was like a lifeline as his godfather’s health continued to rapidly decline. It reached a point that Harry could not visit but instead stayed in his house to spend the little time that was left with his godfather. Harry turned to exchanging owl delivered letters with Tom when they couldn’t see each other. 

Remus continued to be wary of Tom and Tom was wary of him. 

The inevitable happened. 

About a month and a half before Harry’s twelfth birthday, Sirius Black passed away in the summertime. 

Then, twelve days - nearly two weeks had passed since Tom received the last tear stained letter from Harry which had said that Sirius had closed his eyes in his sleep and had not opened them the next morning. 

Tom was agitated, worried for Harry and in an awful mood due to the annoying heat of summer. He had sent an owl this morning, after the last one had not been answered, but he decided at last that he had to go to Harry personally. 

When night fell, Tom traveled. He had to go to Grimmauld Place and see Harry Potter. 

Before he set off, he secured the use of a black, skeletal horse he had met years ago while it was coming out of the woods and into his rose garden. Tom had been working on an especially bloody burial and the temptation to taste blood had been heavy like it had been when Tom had first killed, but the horse had disturbed Tom’s desire by feeding on the liquid first, and even the flesh. Tom called it a horse because it was the closest comparison he could make, though it wasn’t ordinary at all, considering its diet. Another indication had been the large, bat-like wings on its back. 

Tom rarely asked anything of his father for he had been often disappointed or ignored before but after Tom had met the horse he had requested horse riding lessons from his father. He didn’t know why his father agreed but he had. 

The results had been disastrous. Normal horses all reacted badly to Tom and would immediately try to throw him off, or try to trample him. Tom Riddle Sr suffered injury shielding Tom from such an attempt and had required weeks of recovery and physical therapy. This only added to Tom’s infamy as a jinx and his stepmother had banned him from visiting with the justification he had been the cause. 

Once his father was able to stand again, Tom had wanted to show him that he could ride a horse after all, for in that time Tom had simply learned by practicing with the supernatural horse directly. His father’s face had grown so pale that his complexion resembled Tom’s, that and a few horrified words was when Tom realized that his father could not see the skeletal steed and to him Tom was riding on nothing. The effect was amplified when Tom’s horse had used its wings and took to the air. 

After that Tom’s relationship with his father was even chillier than before, for he avoided Tom more than ever, and Tom did not bother to use the nightmarish horse, but he used it that night for he had to reach Harry Potter. 

—

Sirius had made Harry his heir. 

Harry had assisted Remus with taking care of the funeral arrangements and the legal paperwork for the inheritance. Harry would not have it he was until of age. The work required to manage the funeral and related affairs had been arduous and painful for the both of them but it had needed to be done. 

Uncle Vernon had caught wind of the information of Harry being Sirius’ heir. He had not bothered to attend the funeral or give his condolences. Instead he had waited for the attention to die down before he would make his move. 

The night Tom was going to do the same, Vernon was going to see Harry Potter. 

Vernon arrived first.

He had realized Harry would have wealth, not just that of his father, James Potter, but now Sirius Black’s too. The possibility of wealth made Vernon bold. 

He should not have been able to get into Grimmauld Place but an event would happen that allowed him to gain entrance. 

A dark brown owl had landed near the house. 

Vernon noticed the letter by its talons. 

As he moved to the animal and worked on removing it, the door to the house opened.

—

Remus had left the house earlier, before night fell. Harry would be alone in the large house. Remus had made Harry promise he would not go outside, but to instead stay in the inner rooms.

Now, Harry was sorry. Once again he had not followed what Remus had wanted of him. Don’t enter the garden. Don’t leave the room.

Harry had been inside, peeking out through a curtain covered window and looking at the full moon. He had been doing that when he spotted his uncle and then the arrival of the owl that was unmistakably Tom’s. 

It would have been better for Harry to simply stay put and not exit the house, but the thought of Vernon walking away with Tom’s letter had been unbearable to him. 

Harry had failed to get the letter. His uncle had held it out of reach, saying he would hand it over if Harry would sign a few papers. Papers that would place Harry and the control of his accounts with the Dursleys. Vernon had justified his actions, saying that Harry owed the Dursleys for the years they had let him live in their house. 

Harry had kicked him and fled. 

That was how Harry found himself hiding while his uncle was inside Grimmauld Place and stalking its halls. 

—

Tom landed his nightmare near Grimmauld Place. He dismounted knowing that the horse could find its own way back to the woods. Tom made a mental note to himself to gather a bowl of rose petals for it to eat the next time he saw it. 

Tom walked up to the door, knowing he would have no problem entering the house because Harry had invited him to visit weeks ago so the usual barrier that kept him out of buildings wouldn’t deny him entry.

He touched the handle and pushed, realizing the door was already unlocked. 

Tom stepped inside. 

—

Earlier, Harry had heard his uncle shout threats. 

He would drag Harry away to a place where he won’t be found, even some damned little island in the middle of the sea if need be. 

It was quieter now and Harry thought maybe his uncle would try to catch him by surprise, but Harry was alert. He had found a shovel and was wielding it, ready to strike. 

There was someone coming around the corner. 

Harry put as much of his strength as he could into a swing - he missed. 

The other person, who had dodged, caught Harry as Harry fell from over-swinging. They also took the shovel. 

Harry was still in fight mode and using his arms, hitting air. But his calculations were for someone taller and broader than the person he was fighting now, and why he had missed in the first place, otherwise it would have been effective. The person calmly waited for Harry to recognize them and stop. 

“Tom?” Harry said, shocked. His fists stopped moving. 

“Harry.” Tom greeted. He gripped Harry’s shovel in one hand while the other was wrapped around the smaller boy. 

“What are you doing here?”

“The door was open.” Tom said. 

“No, I mean - ”

“I haven’t heard from you in awhile so I worried and decided to personally visit.” 

“Oh.”

“Are you going to tell me why you tried to attack me with a shovel?” Tom asked. “I didn’t do anything.” Anything that Harry knew of. 

Tom released Harry so he could stand on his own feet.

“I thought you were my uncle.” Harry said. 

“What?” Tom said, his expression offended. He dropped the shovel. 

Harry began to give a rambling explanation. 

His uncle wanted custody of him and with it control of the accounts of Harry’s father and godfather. Vernon was trying to kidnap him until Harry gave in. Harry had run away and he had grabbed a shovel, planning to knock Vernon out and lock him in a broom closet until Remus returned. Somewhere during the explanation he muttered something about refusing to return to a cupboard. 

At some point Harry had stopped saying words and was just crying. He was leaning on Tom, hugging the other boy for comfort. 

Crying was mysterious to Tom. He’s seen cronies hired by his stepmother cry once they realized what a mistake it was crossing Tom, but Tom had never cried before. Harry’s tears were warm and Tom held him back, surprised that Harry could find solace in his cold body. Tom wanted to kill the cause of Harry’s crying. 

Harry broke the hug to wipe at his blurred glasses. 

Tom picked up the shovel he had dropped. He spun the shovel expertly, thinking about his garden. Harry had merely wanted to knock Vernon out. Tom had other thoughts.

Harry seemed to be aware of the direction of Tom’s thoughts. 

“Tom, don’t - ”

“What do you want me to do?” Tom asked. “Tell me. It will be done and nothing else.”

“I just want for him to go away from here.” Harry said. “And I want the letter he has.”

“Letter?”

“Um,” Harry looked at his feet sheepishly. “The owl with your letter got here when my uncle did and he took the letter…I went outside to try and get it from him, and that’s how he got in the house.” Harry said, his face red by the end of his confession. 

“I would say that was foolish.” Tom said. He would be flattered but it had gotten Harry in danger. 

Harry sulked because Tom had practically said it. 

“But it sounds like part of the fault is mine so I should fix things.” Tom said, setting the shovel down before walking off to find Harry’s uncle. 

—

“If you don’t come out I will burn the letter!” Uncle Vernon shouted down a hallway. 

“How petty. But I’ll just write another one.” 

Vernon frowned. The cold voice in the dark did not sound like his nephew at all. 

“If you want to keep your fingers, _drop the letter_. I made an implicit promise not to kill you, but who said anything about nonlethal damage?”

It was a commanding voice that demanded to be obeyed. Vernon felt the letter slip from his fingers. 

The letter did not fall to the floor. Instead it floated in the air before flying into a pale hand that emerged from the shadows. 

Vernon trembled and saw the gleam of red eyes. He was surely sober now and couldn’t immediately deny what he was seeing. 

“What did your nephew ever do?” The voice said, soft and cold. 

“He’s dirty.” Vernon snarled. “An uppity little - ”

“Child. He was a child. Still is.” 

“A freak of nature.”

“You make it sound like Harry’s a monster.” Tom said, emerging in a cloak of shadows. “I should show you what an actual monster’s like.”

The shadows danced, a puppet play reenacting past murders. 

Vernon’s eyes bulged in fear. He could not move, he could not run. The shadows tied his legs and muffled his screams invoked by the images he saw. The moment his legs functioned again, he fled Grimmauld Place without bothering to close the door behind himself. 

Tom shut and locked it before returning to Harry. 

He bowed to Harry before producing the letter with a flourish. 

Harry took the letter, hugging it to his chest.

Tom was almost jealous but Harry had already hugged him earlier, and he was the document’s author. 

“I didn’t know you treasured my letters so much.” Tom said. 

Harry did not deny it. To Tom’s amusement, Harry explained that he frequently compared the writing on Tom’s letters to the handwritings on Tom’s diary in an attempt to decipher the latter but it never worked. 

“I could just tell you.” 

Harry shook his head. “I don’t want you to tell me. I’ll figure it out myself one day.” 

“Alright, I’ll wait until that day.” Tom said solemnly. He tried to look around for the shovel but realized that Harry had put it away. 

“Will you really not let me kill your uncle?” Tom asked. “I can still catch him.”

“You can’t.” Harry said without hesitation. “He’s Dudley’s father and Aunt Petunia’s husband.” 

“Sometimes you are just so irritatingly noble, Harry.” Tom complained. 

“Have you killed before, Tom?” Harry asked quietly. 

“Yes.” Tom said, like Harry, he had not hesitated to answer. 

“You’re just a child, you shouldn’t have to - ”

“But I did have to.” Tom said. “And you’re a child but…”

Tom brought up their first meeting at the library. Harry had dodged his initial attack. The horrible awareness, the honed reflexes. A body that had memories of being a target. It had saved him. 

“Have you never been attacked? Did no one want to make your life hell?” Tom asked. 

Harry couldn’t deny anything. 

“Were we ever properly allowed to be children?” Tom continued. Yes, Harry was allowed to at least with Remus and Sirius, but now Sirius was elsewhere, a place he couldn’t help Harry at all, and Remus wasn’t home at a critical time when Harry’s uncle would drag him back to hell.

They were targeted children. But while Harry had honed defensive skills, Tom had honed offensive ones. 

Harry was trapped by Tom’s argument and trembling from Tom’s intentional provocations. Tom wondered if Harry would cry again, his eyes glistened and Tom realized it was not only for himself but for Tom. 

Tom felt the unfamiliar emotion of guilt. 

“I would have killed you like I had others.” Tom said. “But you dodged.” Again, a full admission that held implications. Harry’s uncle was gone but he was alone at home with a killer, one that had tried to kill him before. 

“Those others…did they want to kill you?” Harry asked, thinking about the man in the garden that had intended to murder Tom.

“Yes.”

Harry swallowed. “Then you are here because you have overcome everyone that’s tried to kill you.” 

“Yes.” 

“You have the right to defend yourself.” Harry said pensively. “But my uncle didn’t want to kill me - ”

“No, he just wanted your wealth and everything that should be rightfully yours and he would have made you suffer because of his avarice, not giving you a single scrap while he lived well.” Tom said. He had killed for less. 

“Thank you for letting him go.” Harry said. He grasped Tom’s hand.

Tom squeezed back. “You said something earlier I didn’t understand.” Tom said. “Something about a cupboard?”

Harry began to speak of his life growing up with the Dursleys. He had left out much but Tom was already filling in the puzzle pieces from having met Vernon himself and past scraps of information, such as Harry’s unusual instincts, and the state of Harry’s education before Sirius had found him and Remus had taught him. It was a good thing for Harry’s uncle that Harry was telling Tom this after Vernon was gone. If not Tom would have absolutely killed Vernon Dursley. Slowly.


	12. Chapter 12

Tom and Harry were the only two people left in Grimmauld Place on a full moon night.

Tom announced he would stay until Remus Lupin was back, which basically implied he would stay the night. 

Harry did not protest but mentioned that they should change out of their current outfits. The elements had gotten to Tom’s clothes on his journey over while Harry’s were dusty from him hiding in cramped spaces. Harry used the shower upstairs while Tom used the one downstairs. 

There were no clothes of his own to change into so Tom ended up putting on the clothes Harry had set out for him. Harry’s wardrobe was rather different. It consisted of items of clothing that weren’t mainly black for one. 

Tom ended up in light green pants and a red, orange and yellow shirt. The pants were noticeably inches too short and the porcelain skin of his belly could be seen in a gap between the shirt and pants. Tom absurdly felt like a sunflower but he didn’t hate it, wearing Harry’s things. He wrapped a blanket around himself for Harry had put it out by the clothes too, like compensation for the clothes being small for Tom. 

When Tom exited the bathroom and looked around, he discovered that Harry set out two small platters of rice and vegetables on the dining room table. 

“I take quick showers. It’s a habit.” Harry explained from his seat. He was eating a few slow bites. 

“You should be resting after what happened.” Tom said, drawing conclusions from Harry’s casual statement. Tom had calmed down during his shower but now his outrage was returning. Harry’s uncle was fortunate to be alive. 

“But you’re a guest here.” Harry said. “It’ll feel better eating after an ordeal.” He yawned. 

“You really didn’t need to cook for me.” Tom insisted, sitting down on the seat that was touching Harry’s. 

“I like cooking for people I want to cook for.” Harry said. “And I wanted to make some food… to ground myself and see that I could still make food to eat if I wanted it. Since you are here it wasn’t too hard to just make servings for two.”

“I see.” Tom said, bending the iron fork in his hand like he was snapping the neck of the man that had fled the house. 

“Thank you for saving me.” Harry said. His eyes were fluttering shut and he was leaning back on his chair, and on Tom, clearly about to fall asleep at any moment. 

“You’re welcome.” Tom said, unfurling and adjusting the blanket so that it covered Harry. 

“I mean it, you’re my hero…”

Tom froze. How could it be? Tom was sure he was a monster but somehow tonight, according to Harry he had played the part of a _hero_. Had he not arrived here on a steed after all?

Meanwhile, Harry had fallen asleep, unaware of Tom suffering an existential crisis that had he had played no small part in causing. Tom carefully removed Harry’s glasses and folded it, putting it down on a cleared surface. 

His confusion kept him awake but eventually Tom was drawn into sleep as well, soothed by the weight of the body that leaned on his. 

Tom rarely dreamed, but that night he did. 

There was a tall man in black robes, with a pale bare head and familiar red eyes. His spidery hands and long shadow covered the manor, a castle, a country. 

He was spreading and inescapable. 

The shadow only stopped when it reached another. A shorter, defiant figure. 

The two faced each other. 

A herd of shadows circled the second figure but could not reach them.

The band whispered and begged, addressing the first figure. _Oh please wake up, our Master._

A high and cold voice sounded across the landscape, taunting Tom. _Will you just let him be taken from you?_

Tom’s eyes opened. He immediately pinned down the ragged man that stood at the threshold of the dining room. Tom considered throwing heirloom silver at the man but recalled that the substance would hurt him too. Not only that, but it would be less effective when his target was in human and not wolf form. Drat. 

“You’re too late.” Tom said, glaring at Remus Lupin. “Last night, Harry’s bastard uncle tried to drag Harry back to his abusive household. I drove him away.” Tom growled. “Where were you during the attempt, you pathetic wolf?”

There. Tom had declared he knew what Remus was. 

“I was somewhere where I could not hurt anyone.” Remus said through his shock. “A monster would not have helped!” 

“Strange, I did just fine.” Tom said. “It doesn’t matter if one is a monster as long as said monster can protect those dearest to it.” 

“I could have hurt Harry if I was around.” Remus said. “And you - ”

“You wouldn’t have.” Tom said, confident in his words and assessment of Remus. “And I didn’t. I won’t.”

Remus couldn’t believe what he was hearing about Tom’s belief in Remus and in himself. 

Remus was speaking in a hushed tone and so was Tom, so soft he was nearly hissing and slipping into the language of snakes, but he hadn’t because he wanted Remus to understand his threats and declarations. Neither wanted to wake a sleeping Harry. 

Harry shifted in his sleep, burying his face against Tom’s shoulder. 

Tom smiled smugly while Remus bit back a frustrated sigh. 

“How did you get in here?” Remus asked, frowning.

“Harry is dear to me.” Tom said, not answering and answering Remus’ question. “I should kill you for failing him except he would never forgive me and then he would have no one.” Harry would be alone, like Tom had been before he met Harry. 

Remus really did sigh then. He had almost sent Harry off to a boarding school, and thought of it when Harry had turned eleven. If he had back then, Harry would not have met Tom. Harry would have made better friends. But Remus had not gone through with it. It was Sirius’ disintegrating condition and Harry refusal to miss the limited time left with him. 

Remus was reconsidering. If he sent Harry now, he would no longer be able to see Tom. But Tom would probably also find his way to that school somehow, come hell or highwater. And a school was generally a public place that did not need invitation or if one was needed it could be given by hundreds of people

Imagine, such a monster in a school full of children… But Remus knew he was being miserly and overly pessimistic. He himself had managed to go to school and make it through fine despite his condition. It had taken accommodations, arranged by the headmaster. 

“I trust you.” Harry said suddenly. He was awake and somehow his statement was addressed to both of the people in the room besides him.

He stretched, yawning. “You must be tried and hungry, Professor.” He said. “I’ll make sausages and bacon. Your favorites.” Harry stood up, carefully disentangling himself as he did, so Tom would not find himself jerked to the ground by the blanket. He disappeared into the kitchen. 

Remus looked to Tom. “I am sorry for my attitude towards you thus far.” He said quietly. “Thank you for helping Harry last night.” 

“Apology accepted.” Tom said, barely sparing Remus a glance before he pushed aside the blanket so he could go into the kitchen and watch Harry cook. 

Remus wanted to object, surely the young lord had to return to his manor?

But the complaint died as Remus only now noticed how Tom was dressed once the blanket no longer hid his outfit.

Green pants and a sun hued shirt that were certainly Harry’s. 

That had been the last straw. The fight left him. Remus was tired and the argument with Tom had sapped the little strength he had on the mornings following full moon nights. He stumbled into his own room and collapsed, sure Harry would wake him when breakfast was ready. He hoped Tom would not still be there when he awoke. 

—

The Lady of the manor was ready to shatter her mirror.

“You said Potter would take care of it!” She screeched. “That if I let the two of them stick together that Potter boy would do something about him, but instead of killing him, that boy is devoted to him!”

“And Riddle is devoted to the boy in turn.” The mirror interjected. 

“No, Riddle doesn’t care for anyone but himself and his own life.” The stepmother complained. “He is a self-absorbed, greedy wretch!” It was almost like she was talking about herself. She should look in a mirror, so to speak. 

“There is still time.” The mirror said consolingly. “There will be a reckoning as long as the two are together.” 

The Lady took in the words. “I have been patient.” She complained. 

“What beauty in there in destroying a closed flower that has not yet bloomed? It doesn't know what it is, what it has. It’s better to let the young lord have hope, to grow into an adult.” The mirror continued. “It will be all the more devastating to take it all away then. To chop off a flower at the stem when it is in the midst of its full bloom. Let him believe Potter is his everything when he is actually his destruction.” 

The Lady was ameliorated by the image the mirror painted. Alright, she would wait.


	13. Chapter 13

Sirius had died close to the date of Harry’s twelfth birthday and now on the date itself, about a month after the night his uncle had tried to kidnap him from Grimmauld place, Harry was uncomfortably wondering if there would be another funeral.

The climate was incredibly tense as Remus and Tom looked like they were ready to engage in a duel. 

Tom was holding his umbrella over his head on the approaching July summer night but he looked liked he wanted to close it and stab Remus. 

Harry’s birthday party was taking place in Tom’s rose garden. Two cakes were laid out on a well-stocked table. Both were chocolate.

One cake had been baked by Remus in the afternoon after he had spent the morning resting from the night before. He had used quality ingredients and his ample skill and knowledge. He also had reference of what Harry liked from previous birthdays. 

The other cake had been made by a newly hired cook of the manor. Tom had been inspired and tried something out, asking nicely instead of his usual habit of implied threats. The cook had heard the rumors about Tom but upon hearing the courteously worded request of a cake for a dear friend’s birthday, she had decided that Tom didn’t seem like such a bad young man. The result was a delicious cake carefully made by a new hire wishing to impress a future boss.

Both were wonderful to Harry, who in his life had lived a time he did not get a cake on his birthday, let alone two. It was just a pity the two people who had given the cakes to him were managing to make Harry’s birthday not about him but about the grudge between them.

Harry distracted himself from the unfortunate atmosphere by readying pieces of chocolate cake for the other party quests, the snakes that resided in the garden. Harry minded them and for their part the snakes did not disturb him. In fact the snakes were as mindful of Harry as he was toward them, like they had received instructions to be. 

A brave or curious few tried the frosting or a fluffy crumb but then slithered away upon finding the dessert unsuited for their taste, going off to find snails, slugs, and worms instead. 

Harry wondered what the snakes were saying. He knew it was possible to understand because Tom not only seemed to comprehend the speech of snakes but could speak it as well. Harry had overheard Tom doing so before but the boy had seemed unhappy upon finding out that Harry knew of his ability. Harry had expressed that he did not want Tom to be ashamed of something he could do. This calmed Tom, who then stated his intention to teach Harry. Harry thought Tom was a good teacher but there were only a handful of lessons before a stop was put to it because Harry had accidentally said “Good night” to Remus as a hiss. This was a reason why the party was strained. 

“I would like to give you your present now.” Tom said suddenly, facing Harry. 

He attempted to hold his umbrella in the crook of his neck as he applied his hands to opening the briefcase he had with him.

Harry noticed his struggle and moved to take the umbrella but instead Remus was the one who ended up gripping the handle and shading Tom. 

“I will hold it.” Remus explained. “As Mr. Riddle would need his hands to give you the present and you’ll need your hands to receive it.”

“Okay.” Harry agreed as he stood expectantly. 

Tom shook his head and motioned for Harry to remain seated while he got onto a knee and worked the case open. 

Harry followed the instruction, sitting with a perplexed expression. Tom had dressed up for his birthday and the earth was surely getting into his fine clothes. 

Tom grinned triumphantly once he pulled out the documents that had been inside. 

Remus had been steadily held the umbrella above him and now even he was looking curiously. 

Tom carefully handed Harry the papers and waited for his expression to change once he read and took in their implications. 

“Happy birthday, Harry.” Tom smiled. 

“Tom, this is…!” Harry’s eyes ran over the papers disbelievingly. He could not help but look at Remus. 

“What is it?” Remus wondered. He decided he had to look at whatever Tom had given Harry. He handed the umbrella back to Tom, who took it. 

Harry gave Remus the papers. 

Tom was a young lord, manipulative and cunning. He could make things happen.

Remus read. His mouth opened but no speech emerged. 

“Every document is perfectly legal and valid.” Tom declared. “Congrats, you are now Harry’s godmother,” he said to Remus. Tom was right in that according to the legal documents Remus held, he was a woman who had been married to Sirius, and was now a widow following his death. Also, Harry James Potter was in her custody. 

Harry was over the moon. 

Remus was staring at the signatures on the marriage certificate. 

Tom looked like he had pulled off the perfect prank. 

Remus’ hands tightened on the records but he did not crush them. He was overcome with a wave of grief. It occurred to him that Sirius would have liked Tom’s actions. He would have approved of it because it would help Harry and had left Remus flabbergasted. 

“I’ll be sure to keep these safe.” Remus sighed, accepting his fate. 

_Victory._ Tom thought. Everyone was happy, more or less. Harry would not have to go back and live with the Dursleys, or some other horrible place, like an orphanage. Remus could watch over Harry as Sirius had wanted him to, and Harry would be in Grimmauld Place in Little Hangleton and within Tom’s reach. Yes, it was a win for everyone. 

Harry looked like he could kiss Tom and he really did, on the cheek.

Tom’s eyes widened. He had been caught up in his thoughts and missed the brief touch. 

Harry immediately blushed afterward. 

Tom asked for another peck because that one was too quick and had taken him surprise. He wanted to know it was coming and be aware to enjoy it. 

He was cajoling for another while Harry was trying to recover from his embarrassment over the impulsive action.

Remus let them have their moment as he carefully filed the legal documents back into the briefcase, which Tom gave as well. 

Remus thought about the conversation he had with Tom after he had woken from his nap the morning following the night he had failed to be there for Harry but Tom had been. 

“You should know about Harry’s family. The Potters and how they have protected the realm from creatures - the joy-sucking wraiths, the dead that rise from their graves, the giant spiders of the forest… but their role became near obsolete when these creatures suddenly disappeared from the Little Hangleton thirteen years ago.” Remus said. 

Tom had twitched. Thirteen years ago?

“I’ve been trying to find out why and I don’t think I knew until - ”

“I was born thirteen years ago.” Tom had interrupted. “You think I am the reason for the sudden losses. That there should be a balance, no? If the darkness went, it had to have gone somewhere.” Say, into the shape of a boy that was standing right there. 

“I have no proof.” Remus had said. “But if you ever did something to warrant extreme action - Harry would be the one to end you.” 

This was what Remus thought about as he reached for the long wooden box inside of the trunk he had brought with him.

Tom had already given Harry a birthday present, now it was Remus’ turn to give one. 

Tom had been curious and wanted to look in the trunk, but reasoned it would open and he’d see its contents soon enough. But it turned out in the container was another container. He watched Remus set the box down on a cleared part of the table. 

Tom could notice the subtle trembling of Remus hands as he put on gloves before opening the box he had taken out.

It opened and Tom was met with the sight of…

Oh. _Oh._

This was Harry's present? 

Silver. 

Tom had handled silver before. 

He barely felt the tingle of regular silver coins in his hand. Silver coins that exchanged through many hands - customer to merchant, buyer to seller, such silver was common, useless. But inherited silver? That was different. Generation to generation, parent to child…such silver imbued with power. 

The silver cross on Harry’s neck had saved him the day of their first meeting in Tom’s library. Tom had almost killed Harry then, but Tom was glad he had not. The silver cross - it must have been inherited, had protected Harry. Tom would recognize it had reduced his strength and interfered with his powers. 

What astonishingly powerful silver it was! Tom’s skin stung at the phantom memory of the burns it had inflicted. 

But he knew the pain that could be caused by the item he was seeing now would be worse.

A silver sword. Inlaid with bloody red rubies. Beautiful, deadly. Resting on velvet. 

The werewolf was gifting Harry the means to destroy him and Tom both. 

Tom listened as Remus explained to Harry the significance of the sword. 

It was his father’s silver blade, passed down in the Potter family. 

“Cute.” Tom said, as Harry picked up the sword and gave a few careful experimental swings, well out of the range of hitting Tom or Remus. Really? Giving a twelve-year-old a sword? 

“What will you do with it, go slaying things?” Tom asked. “What would you kill? What could you overpower, a rabbit?” Every beast worth hunting was larger. How amusing. Honestly, Harry was small and - 

“I fought you off, didn’t I?” Harry said, reminding Tom of their skirmish in the library. He had experience fighting off opponents larger than he was.

“You did.” Tom said darkly. Tom was mocking Harry because the sleeping part of his soul called Lord Voldemort was anxious and fearful. Even as he teased Harry he knew that the heirloom sword had incredible power as an inherited silver object, the weapon counterpart of the shield Harry wore around his neck. It could kill him, for sure. With finality. There would be no rising again like from the apple. 

Remus explained that Harry would have tutors to teach him sword wielding as Remus could not personally teach Harry to wield silver. 

“You’re at fault.” Remus said, facing Tom.

The day Harry had gotten the scar, after Harry had fallen asleep, Remus had talked to Sirius privately, sharing his full suspicions and worries. Sirius had been moved to agree with somethings but he knew it wasn’t possible to keep Harry away. What would they do, lock him away? Any such ideas were bad. But from that talk, Sirius had discussed with Remus at length about giving Harry the sword and getting him sword training. 

“It was something Sirius wanted done.” Remus said, hating that he had to say it like that, but Harry really did need to study the art for his own self-protection. Especially since it didn’t look like he would break off his friendship with Tom. 

Months had passed since the scar appeared and it had not healed. Remus doubted it ever would. 

Remus had said those last thoughts aloud. 

“That’s too bad.” Tom said, not sounding sorry at all. 

Harry held the sword respectfully, treating it for what it was. A weapon and not a toy. 

“Professor…” Harry began, setting the sword back into its box and closing it. “I know.” He said those two simple words, not elaborating yet. 

“You know?” Remus echoed with dread. 

Tom kept quiet. Whatever Harry could share sounded like it would be interesting. 

“That time I encountered a cloaked wraith, you saved me.” Harry said. “You didn’t stop to put gloves on and the lighted silver candelabra you held…it burned you. I know it did, even though Sirius told me you hurt yourself cooking. I saw him bandage your hands, and I did feel angry that he lied to me but I realized it must have been for an important reason and he was protecting you in a way, like you had protected me.” 

Harry had finished his calmly stated speech and was now drinking his cup of juice. 

Harry had also noticed the pattern to Remus’ occasional nightly disappearances. Remus’ clothing tended to need stitching and patches after those nights and while Remus wanted to mend it once he had the energy, Sirius would simply buy entirely new sets of similar, higher quality outfits for him despite Remus’ protests and arguments for thrift. It bothered Remus too, when Harry followed Sirius’ sneaky examples and repaired Remus’ garments before he recovered enough to get around to it himself. 

Remus fell into a seat and reached for a glass as well. “You knew.” Remus repeated. He would need time to unpack the implications. 

“My Harry is rather shrewd.” Tom said admiringly. “He knows. Now there is really no reason for you to reject being his guardian.”

Harry looked even deeper into his cup, pretending to not have heard Tom’s casually possessive statement. 

Remus glared at Tom but did not deny he would take care of Harry.


	14. Chapter 14

Seven was a magically powerful number. Seven was a lucky number. 

Harry Potter had been rescued from the Dursley household at age seven. 

Tom Riddle would have disagreed with seven’s luckiness, for he had died at age seven. 

Snow White had seven dwarfs, but Bluebeard also had seven wives.

There were seven heavens. There were seven sins. 

Seven years passed.

—

The Lady of the manor was holding a Yule Ball, an extravagant affair held on the twenty-fifth of December, attended by many nobles. The huge celebration was a calculated and spiteful move because all the effort the staff had to put into planning, setting up and catering for such a thing sapped them of the energy and time needed for any celebration of the young lord’s birthday that was less than a week later. Even on that day itself, she would insist the alcohol and food were for the celebration of the New Year and not a birthday.

The young lord, a man now, did not care about this move because there was only one, maybe two people he cared to celebrate his birthday with. He did not need fancy parties. 

Tom was standing alone but drawing the interest of the women around him. He was handsome, inheriting his father’s good looks, though his slitted eyes were scarlet as ever. But that was a small flaw now in the bigger picture, and a fine picture he was! Tall, dashing and dangerous. Dark hair, crimson eyes, upon a white finger was a gold ring, and around his neck a gold locket. 

Inherited silver was deadly and burned Tom, but inherited gold? Now that had the opposite effect. Inherited gold invigorated him - it gave him power and strength. 

A locket of heavy gold, adorned by emeralds laid out in the shape of a serpentine “S”. A gold ring with a black stone, marked with a symbol - a triangle that held a circle and a line that bisected both shapes. There was a pleasant hum upon his skin. It made him feel invincible. 

He was thankful for these two gold objects left to him by his late mother, Merope Riddle nee Gaunt, even if she had died and abandoned him. He was pleased with the power he drew from the inherited golden heirlooms. They were not some recent bulk created items of dozens and dozens but genuine, ancient articles. 

Some party guests were eyeing his gold locket and his gold ring. Disgusting. But he would not murder anyone tonight. Maybe. He had not for quite some time.

The others were of no interest to him. He was waiting for his match, his opposite and his equal. Where was the man with the silver cross and silver blade?

Suddenly there he was, the crowd parting before him, like they were afraid they would catch the madness that made Harry Potter return to Tom Riddle. 

Harry was indeed wearing his silver cross, with his silver sword in the dark sheath at his side. The pommel of the silver sword had burned Tom once and so the sheath was turned into a full bodied sheath. It was harder to draw the blade in an emergency but amusingly Harry had insisted it be full with Tom’s safety on his mind rather than his own. 

Harry often wore both cross and sheathed blade. The sword he carried since he was twelve and the necklace long before then. The weapon had to be by his side as matter of his occupation, for Harry had been made a knight at age sixteen, joining the Order his father had been a part of. 

Remus maintained that Harry should always have the silver if he were seeing Tom. Harry thought it wasn’t right to carry a blade while seeing a friend but the habit became that Harry carried it everywhere so Tom did not see it as a slight. 

The cross necklace Harry wore was a matter of familiarity and habit. Tom could not fault Harry for that either though he had teased him for it. The necklace was worn in the bath and even at night when he was sleeping. 

“Nighttime is when Dark creatures are most active, Tom.” Harry had replied. 

That was true, but before midnight one New Year’s Eve, Harry had granted Tom’s birthday wish by taking off his cross and letting the older boy kiss his neck three times. That was what Tom got and it had been his limit. The action had left them both breathless and on that night it had been dangerous. 

Tom was aware of the part of him that slept in a metaphysical glass coffin ever since he had bitten the apple and died at age seven. He had died and the monster buried within would have woken had he feasted on blood until his victim died. Lord Voldemort waited still. The sight of Harry’s unadorned and vulnerable neck, the touch of it, had stirred him. 

In the present, Tom irresponsibly wondered if he could get Harry to allow him to kiss his neck again, days later, on his birthday.

He could see Harry now, dressed in fancy formal wear, his usually unruly hair somewhat tamed and his emerald eyes peering out of clear circular glasses. 

Harry was wearing green and it paired well with the green of his eyes and the silver he wore. Tom wore red, which suited the red of his eyes and the gold he wore. 

“Tom!” Harry greeted. “You look - ”

“Good enough to eat.” Tom complimented first.

“And your eyes look hungry as ever.” Harry huffed.

Tom smiled, taking it as a compliment. He took Harry’s hand and they began to dance. They shocked basically everyone else - the gentleman-lady pairs. This was not unusual, Tom and Harry always drew attention. This evening, Tom let himself be lead around first. But they would eventually switch around. 

They were a lightning rod for gossip. 

As children, Harry had been thought a simpler target than Tom in the manor. Harry was an outsider, and less intimidating than the coldness Tom had at a younger age, an inhuman figure eluding his own darkness. As a child, Tom had been openly unnerving.

Harry’s sanity and morals had been questioned. 

A child Harry did not retaliate nor did he want to. Tom though, thought an attack on Harry was an attack on him. So he acted. No deaths. Harry wouldn't allow it. But Tom had struck terror.

Places thought to be safe suddenly weren’t safe. Things went missing. Bones were broken. People reduced their slander of Harry Potter, who somehow grew to be more intimidating while Tom Riddle appeared to be less so with age. 

An adult Tom was different from an aloof and outright sinister child Tom. He had practice for years now and knew how to act and put on a human face. He worked on an enchanting demeanor, and put effort into it, work that was constantly offset by his unsettling eyes. He worked all the harder, giving alluring smiles, let them looking at that instead. He did not show too much teeth, unless he wanted to. Tom had taken full advantage of the beautiful face he had grown into. 

Harry knew Tom was acting and had seen beyond his mask, knowing what he was like since they were children. 

An act was easier though - how Tom wished he had learned earlier people would be nicer to him if he charmed them. Oh well, it was good to know that killing people could gather preferential treatment too, though out of fear. 

Tom was subtler now, no longer a child who did things by levitating objects around and hitting people with things. He was more careful. There were lots of people watching and he had an image to project. 

Lots of people were looking right now. Tom was annoyed at the attention. He had idle thoughts. If only he were to stare back and each witness would turn to stone. He’d move them as he pleased and out of the way. He could arrange the stone statues as he wanted and dance with Harry around them, weaving among the silent and still, and therefore perfect spectators. 

It was an appealing thought. 

“What are you thinking about?” Harry asked Tom, because he had recognized the appearance of a genuine and scary smile rather than a false and sweet one.

“I am thinking,” Tom said, “That if only there were less people and more statues.” 

Harry accepted the answer. There was surely more to it but he did not push. 

Tom got close, closer than what was required for dancing and the gossiping voices around them grew louder 

The silver cross on Harry’s neck pulsed meaningfully and Harry’s sword, even in its sheathed state burned Tom slightly as his leg was too near while getting close to Harry. It was rather annoying, Tom thought, like having two chaperons. He didn’t want to keep a proper and decent distance. 

Onlookers were alarmed as Harry dipped Tom and Tom in turn lifted Harry in the air and Harry cooperated, obliging.

Both had ample stamina and they could vibrantly dance and talk. They tried to infer at what Tom’s stepmother could have planned for the party. 

“Holy water fortified drinks?” Tom guessed. 

Tom had a gold cup. It was one that had a history of being an inherited item of course, otherwise Tom would have had no interest in it. It was not personally his but he could still draw power from it and it had its useful attributes that Tom wielded to great effect. The cup could detect poisons and once he had drunk holy water from it in front of his stepmother, who had known what had been poured in. Her reaction was worth him not having killed her by then, for she had not known the water had ceased to be holy the moment it entered Tom’s drinking vessel. Tom did not normally travel with it but he did have it today. He had to, at his stepmother’s ball.

Tom had said it off-handedly as a joke but Harry looked seriously offended by the thought of Tom being poisoned. 

Tom laughed in amusement at the concern but he was also moved and trying to hide his discomfort at recalling the time he really had been poisoned to death. 

“It’s not funny.” Harry said.

“You’re right, it’s not.” Tom whispered into his ear. 

Harry had adjusted his necklace so that it was lower and tucked away. The sword fixed so it was to at the back. It was simple for Tom to rest his chin on Harry’s shoulder, and like this they were close, their bodies touching as they danced slowly, not at all following the music. Eventually though, they did stop upon hearing a noticeable break. 

Both of them felt the same about wanting to keep to each other’s company but they had to socialize with others in order to achieve some goals, and thus separated to do so. 

Tom finished chatting with others before Harry does and he stood to the side, drinking red wine out of the golden, antique cup he had brought with him. 

Harry walked up to him, and without bothering to ask, took the cup from where it had been resting in Tom’s hand. Harry was thirsty from talking to other guests and he drank right out of it, his lips on the same place Tom’s were moments before. 

To Tom’s amusement, Harry handed it back empty. Tom didn’t mind and had watched Harry’s throat move to swallow the drink, his expression hooded by the end when Harry had given it back and his fingers had brushed over Tom’s. Harry Potter was the only person on this earth that was allowed to do this, would dare to, and could live to do it again as much as he wanted. Anyone else and it would have been their last drink. 

“Nothing can ruin this fine evening.” Tom declared. 

“Except…” Harry began. 

Tom did not like the sound of that “except”.

“It’s not a secret and everyone’s speaking of it, Tom.” Harry said. “Your father’s very ill he - ”

“Doesn’t have much time. I know.” Tom said. Tom repressed the urge to roll his eyes. So much for a perfect night. 

While Harry talked with other people, Tom had too. He had to test the waters for which nobles would take his side once Lord Riddle passed and his title and lands would have to be given to another. Tom was the heir but his stepmother surely had other plans. 

“I’ll be a pallbearer. I’ll eulogize him. I could be the filial son and put him out of his misery already - ” Tom said. 

“Tom!”

“Patricide is _bad_.” Tom said, in a fair imitation of Harry’s voice. 

“I’m pleased you understand.” Harry said in an equally accurate imitation of Tom’s. 

Tom had nearly killed his father when he was sixteen because he tried to push him into an arranged marriage, saying he was of age to marry. Tom Riddle Sr had to bribe for his life by presenting Tom with the locket and ring left by Tom’s mother, since he was of age and could receive such things. Tom had been pleased that at least his father had dutifully kept the items and fulfilled his dead wife’s wishes by presenting Tom with the heirlooms. And there had been no more talk of marriage. 

The gossip of Tom’s attempt on his father’s life worked against him now. He had garnered as much while speaking to the party guests. Other nobles were cordial enough to Tom once he had charmed them but his stepmother had worked for longer at the game of politics and she did not nearly have as many well-circulated rumors on her, nor slitted red eyes. 

“I never had a particularly close relation with him. It’s not like how you are with Lupin and were with Sirius Black.” Tom said, knowing why Harry was sensitive. “He provided half of my genetic material.” Others would even deny that, saying the Devil was Tom’s father. 

Tom took Harry’s hand. He didn’t want to argue inside, among the crowd. They had to go somewhere more private. 

—

They went outside, where it was cold and the ground held snow. In an echo of what had happened in the past, Tom placed his cloak around Harry’s shoulders. The pair was silent now and they walked to an area of the grounds where an apple tree once stood. Harry sat down on bench while Tom remained standing. 

Tom’s eyes roamed over the area and beyond. 

He did not really care about taking on his father’s lordship or lands. There was more besides this Little Hangleton. Little was in its name and Tom did not have strong feelings about becoming the lord of the place or not. There were other realms, ones not even on the same plane Tom was standing on now. 

“I can give you the world. Just give me the command.” Tom said, much like he had promised over seven years ago that he would do what Harry asked of him and nothing more. And he had kept his promise. 

“Where is this coming from?” Harry asked. 

“The mood seemed right to me.” Tom said, his hands spread and encapsulated the snow covered landscape. “I was born on such a scenic evening and I had thought my life would be a tragic one, cold and miserable as the night I had been born.” In Tom’s early years it had been, for he remembered the wintry years he had no warmth and no food and had been desperate enough to bite into an apple he knew was poison.

“But then you stepped into it…and you never left.” Tom knelt on the ground so that he faced a seated Harry, who was looking into his red eyes. 

“I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.” Tom murmured. 

“Because you would have conquered half the world by now?” Harry asked. 

“Only half?”

“I’m not interested in world domination, Tom.”

“You don’t want me.” 

“What does that have to do with not wanting you?”

“It’s part of the package.”

“I want you but I don’t want you doing that.” 

Tom immediately latched onto the “I want you”. “You want me?” Tom echoed. 

“Yes.” 

Tom leaned in closer. “I can do it. I’m capable.”

“I know.” Harry said. He tried to speak of what Tom could concentrate on - what actually would be his. The lordship, the manor and its related lands. There were obstacles to that. “I’m worried, Tom.”

“Worried about what my dear stepmother’s planning?”

Harry nodded. “Is this party just a spiteful move or a deeper deception? When I spoke to people they said the Yule Ball had a guest of honor - some traveler from the north. I haven’t sighted them, though I’ve looked for who could it be. They’d stand out right?” 

“I don’t care.” Tom said. “You are my only guest of honor.” Tom had the arrogance of youth, the gold on his person, and of course what he was. He doubted his stepmother could do anything. Not much could harm him these days. If what was impeding his courtship of Harry was worry over Tom’s inheritance and his status as Tom Riddle Sr’s heir then he would deal with it. 

“I’m trying to figure out how to protect you from what she’s planning.” Harry reiterated. 

“Is that what we are alone out here for?” Tom asked. 

“No, I thought we stepped out because we were arguing about your father - ” 

Tom interrupted Harry by leaning forward and kissing him. It’s silencing and greedy, swallowing any further words. Harry gasped and no longer tried to speak, kissing back as deeply. Tom’s ring adorned hand tangled into his messy hair and Harry tugged back at Tom’s in a way that would have hurt someone ordinary. 

Harry emerged from the kiss expressing that he had forgotten what topic he had been speaking on, which exactly had been Tom’s objective. He glanced at the mistletoe on the branch that hung above them. 

Harry’s heart rate had sped up, happiness spread in his veins. But then the already cold air turned colder and he felt the joy in his chest strangely disperse as if it were being drained from him. His intuition flared. 

He stood up and stepped away from Tom, for the young lord’s safety, and drew his silver blade. 

Tom stood too and used his power to snap off the mistletoe breach, guiding it forward and pinning down a tattered robed wraith. 

Harry threw his blade and hit the target. It was bathed in light and shrieked before stilling. 

Tom tossed away the remaining, inanimate black cloth with his shadows. 

Fortunately, the only kiss that had happened occurred between Tom and Harry. 

“Why are more of them appearing?” Harry said to himself. “There were less in the past, but a few days ago I had to deal with a church graveyard filled with the risen…” 

Tom did not speak. 

“It may have been attracted by the general mood from the festivities.” Harry said, referring to the defeated phantom. 

There was no time to relax. The peace, already disturbed, did not recover. 

A shout from inside the manor could be heard. “The Lord of the manor - his pulse has stopped!” 

Tom’s face became a mask empty of emotion but he leaned into the touch when Harry’s placed a consoling hand on his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Researching what horcruxes are silver or gold was odd because in the movies the locket is silver but in the books it is of heavy gold. I went with saying the locket and ring are gold so Tom could get power from them and have it be a contrast to the Harry’s silver objects and silver is known to be anti-werewolf and anti-vampire in fantasy books. 
> 
> Silver matches green and gold matches red so weirdly enough, and for eye color reasons, Tom is Gryffindor colors and Harry is in Slytherin colors at the ball is how it worked out.


	15. Chapter 15

It would not be easy for Tom to take on the lordship. 

Earlier, Harry had a meeting with the Order in the dining room of Grimmauld Place, which was served as meeting place. During the gathering Harry recalled how Tom had saved him from Vernon and Harry had cooked him a meal before the two ending up falling asleep on the table’s seats. 

A test of the general atmosphere had shown the other knights were not very pleased with the thought of Tom taking on his father’s lands and duties. 

At least one knight admitted that Tom would fit the role for he could be quite charming and clever.

Harry brought up that Tom was Tom Riddle Sr’s son, the physical resemblance could not be ignored. There was no question about Tom’s legitimacy. 

“You say his heritage cannot be doubted…but there is the matter of his eyes.” Another knight had commented, and Harry had to hold back from pulling his own hair in frustration. 

“It is a shame that you’ve been taken in by a such a creature, considering your heritage, Sir Potter!” said a knight that Harry knew for a fact was in the Lady of the manor’s pocket. 

Harry didn’t even have time to respond before another voice sounded. 

“Or maybe it’s _because_ of his heritage,” said the same knight that had doubted Tom’s parentage. 

Harry clenched his brown fingers, not responding to the the barb. He had to help Tom. It wouldn’t help if he snapped back. 

“What I mean is - we know you are close to the him, very close, and it is clouding your judgment. You and him make odd _bedfellows_ , a knight and a monster...so perhaps there is a reason we are not privy to as to why you are taking his side?” 

Oh bloody hell. Were they going after his personal life now? Wonderful. 

What Harry had with Tom wasn’t what the knights were implying but Harry had the brief thought that could not be unthought that he wished where he currently stood with Tom was as they said. 

“I merely want the named heir to take on what should be his.” Harry said. “It is only what he is due, for I have often noted the strange state of Riddle Manor. How is it that part of it could look so grandiose while another section languishes, and is avoided and neglected?”

There was a guilty silence. 

“You speak to me of the rumors about Tom is so surely you have heard of those about the Lady of the manor. The hiring of hitmen, the attempts on the life of her stepson when he was child - ”

“He made it out just fine!” Someone shouted defensively. 

“What is our duty as knights?” Harry asked. “To protect was it? But what about Tom? Back then did you all think, it’s not my responsibility. Someone else will do something? It’s not my business what happens to him?” 

None of the knights answered. 

“Tom saved himself and if you think him a monster, you should hold some responsibility.”

“And if he decides he wants our lives? Who will take responsibility then?” Asked the red-faced knight that had ties to the Lady. 

“I will.” Harry said. “I will be the first person in front of him and I’ll make sure he stops there.” Before anyone could doubt him if they wanted to, he had declared an end to the meeting for quite an amount of snow was falling and the roads would be harder to travel. 

Harry was now eating a warm stew that Remus had prepared. It was the familiar habit of eating after having dealt with an ordeal. 

Because Remus was curious and it looked like Harry needed to vent, he asked Harry how the meeting had gone. 

“A knight implied that he thought Tom and I were sleeping together and that was why I am pushing for him to get a lordship that should rightfully be his.” Harry said. It wasn’t like that. Harry would say they were friends and not lovers. But it was nebulous and there was a line that crossed into lovers that they both danced upon, one foot on a side of the line and a foot on the other. 

Remus knew a thing or two about ambiguous relationships and he could not quite shutter his reaction to Harry’s statement but he placed down a thumb-sized piece of cheesecake. 

“I want to see him.” Harry admitted after finishing the dessert. 

Remus did not tell Harry not to go anywhere because when had that ever work? It was like a guarantee Harry would go.

—

Tom had been restless, so very early he had gone outdoors in the snow. The cold didn’t bother him for it was the element he had been born in. Besides he had on his golden heirlooms, locket and ring both and the currents of power was as good as warmth. 

He ended up in the graveyard where his mother, Merope Gaunt, was buried. The first time it was a good thing for him to discover that a graveyard was a relatively public place that did he did not need an invitation to enter. 

Tom had visited occasionally over the years, but especially when he had been a small, starving boy, hiding among the tombstones and stealing grave offerings. Of course he had been taught that such actions were disrespectful to the dead but he had thought that surely the dead did not need the food while he had, lest he join their ranks. But in the end he still had, with the bite of an apple. 

Tom had brought roses with him. His garden no longer flourished like it had in the past and it was winter but he still managed to bring a few blooms. 

They were an offering. He wanted an answer. A sign, anything at all. What happens now that both his birth parents were dead?

Tom spoke to the Merope Gaunt’s grave. He had explained before that his stepmother had tried to get Tom’s father to move Merope to unhallowed ground outside of the sanctified ground of a proper graveyard, but Tom Riddle Sr had refused to. 

Tom didn’t think it mattered if the earth was sanctified or not. He was currently walking on it after all.

Now, Tom was telling his mother that his father will be buried next to her if Tom successfully fought his stepmother wanting to bury him elsewhere or to bury him there but also move Merope away. 

Tom explained that he was one with the power to decide, who could say Merope was to stay and that her husband would be buried next to her. 

“Do I get anything at all in return for this?” Tom asked, but the cold gravestone had never answered him before and it did not now. 

Tom switched to threats because that was how he worked these days, if honeyed offerings did not. 

“I could go all the way to the mountains in the north.” Tom said. “I’ll scatter father’s ashes there and you’ll never see a shred of him ever again.” 

Nothing.

Tom’s ire had been building and now wanted to be released. 

He was not alone in the Little Hangleton Graveyard. No one else was mad enough to visit in such snow, but Tom’s company wasn’t living. 

There was a host of cloudy eyed corpses, shambling toward Tom. 

Tom did not feel fear at all. They were simply a nuisance. It seemed like every year there were more and more sightings of such creatures around. 

Tom used the shadows casted by the gravestones to rip the formation to pieces. They fell and like puppets with their strings cut, no longer moved. 

If he were not so angry and annoyed he would have noticed the destroyed remains had not looked to him like a meal but like expectant soldiers looking toward a commander. 

It was satisfying for Tom to destroy and it had distracted him from the feeling that suspiciously seemed like mourning. Tom decided he needed further distraction and with that in mind he decided to return to the manor.


	16. Chapter 16

Once Tom was at the manor he was greeted by the cook who noted his return and had prepared food for him, placing it in a basket. He had a functioning acquaintanceship with her ever since he had asked her to bake a birthday cake for Harry’s twelfth birthday. It had been very satisfactory and he asked for more sweets and food over the years which he ate himself or shared with Harry. Tom had complimented her skill. The taste and the fact that the food wasn’t poisoned had distracted him from what he really wanted to consume. 

Tom smiled and accepted the dishes, announcing that he would eat the meal in his garden before going for a stroll in the woods. 

The cook smiled back and nodded for she was used to Tom’s idiosyncrasies. She knew Tom sometimes had a friend he brought with him to picnic with in the garden too - Harry Potter, a brown-skinned, green-eyed boy with hair as dark as Tom’s. If Tom told her beforehand she would prepare extra cooking, dishware and utensils. The weariness from catering the Yule Ball yesterday clung to her and there was also the unfortunate news of Lord Riddle’s passing but she still made the meals for Tom because she supposed it would be worse for him, since he had just lost his father. She was of the opinion good food would always help when faced with news of disaster. 

She watched Tom stroll away. 

Tom traveled to his garden and ate alone but wishing Harry was by his side. After his meal, he went to the woods. Before he entered he spotted his skeletal steed, and deciding it serendipitous, Tom crossed into the trees atop the horse. 

It did not take him long to spy prey and he had a speed advantage with the mount he had. The giant spider barely had time to soak its jaws with venom before Tom had immobilized and destroyed it. A few such spiders had been showing up in Little Hangleton proper and Harry had dispatched those. Now Tom was riding right into their territories. 

Tom wandered and wondered. He saw the silk strands. Now imagine if someone human had encountered it while going for a nice ride through the woods. 

Eventually, Tom neared a strange circular clearing in the forest, the ground seared. Was it always here? The air smelled of fire. 

The horse wanted to leave and head in a different directions but Tom pushed forward. Still it fought and Tom at last decided to get off and let the skeletal steed go where it wanted to. 

Tom would stay. 

He walked into the clearing and soon saw that there was already someone there. 

It was an old man.

He was surrounded by fallen, still smoldering cadavers. 

“Hmm, rather tricky beings. It appears they cannot be harmed by being cut. As such, fire is the main way to repel them.” The old man was speaking to himself in an academic tone. 

Tom had a feeling he was or had been a teacher. 

Tom had only heard of it in books, but he was sure the scarlet, golden beaked bird flying by the old man’s side was a phoenix. It was surely what had produced the fires that had burned the risen corpses and created the clearing. It looked like a tried old thing, down on its last leg, for its colors were dull. Even though the phoenix was in a reduced state, for Tom it was irritating to even be in its presence for it was like a mini sun had come down to earth, and his mood grew foul.

“Who are you?” Tom asked, demanding to be answered. 

“My name is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.” He said. “And I’m afraid that I was suppose to be at a party, but I got lost…” He gestured at the bird overhead. “And he is Fawkes.” He had noticed Tom glancing at him too. 

Now Tom knew who the man was. “The party’s over. It was yesterday.” Tom said, annoyed at having been answered in the way he had. Did Dumbledore really have to say the entire thing? Tom only had “Marvolo”. And why was “Brian” among all that? He had an immediate dislike of the old man. 

“So, my stepmother summoned you to destroy me.” Tom said. 

“I am not here to do her bidding, though she invited me.”

Tom recognized the statement as being true but that didn’t mean the old man did not mean him harm. 

“And it appears I have missed the Yule Ball.” Dumbledore said. 

“If you had any presents to deliver, you missed your chance.” Tom said. Dumbledore had a white bearded and genial appearance, but he wasn’t frail, instead emanating strength. 

Yesterday, on Yule Night it would have been the time that an old man supposedly delivered presents to the children that had been good during the year, and left coal for the bad ones. It was a story for the gullible children and even Tom had heard of it, not because anyone personally told it to him but because he had overheard it before. 

“Ohohoho. But I am too thin for the part.”

The laugh was obnoxious. Tom considered that it really had been too long since he had killed and they were in an isolated part of the woods. 

“But tell me Tom, would you say you were a nice or naughty child?” Dumbledore looked like he already know the answer but was asking anyway. 

“Naughty.” Tom answered, and with that he attacked. 

Tom did not succeed for the phoenix’s light kept his shadows at bay. 

There were still a few corpses ambling into the clearing and noticing them, a thought occurred to Tom. 

“Get him.” Tom commanded. 

Oddly enough, they did attempt to shuffle toward Dumbledore.

Tom watched. It was almost as if they had followed his order. Interesting. Tom’s instinct was to figure out how far this power extended. There were things he could do with an army of such creatures. 

Dumbledore sighed after Fawkes felled the last body. “I am very disappointed in you Tom.” He said. 

Tom wondered how Dumbledore managed to sound like a professor peeved at a delinquent student and a grandfather upset by a prodigal grandson at the same time. 

Tom was determined to win and with that in mind he gathered his shadows and drew power from the gold locket and gold ring he had on.

—

The firebird was dead. It was nothing but ashes now. 

Tom smirked. He was very much worse for wear but he wasn’t the dead one. He knew he couldn’t lose after all, not with his heirlooms on. 

Dumbledore appeared unarmed but Tom thought him a cowardly for having a bird fight for him. 

Without the phoenix’s light it was simple for Tom get closer. He decided to go for a quick, merciful ripping of the throat 

It was too late to stop his hand, although his red eyes had sighted silver.

Dumbledore had on a silver necklace and the shape it was in oddly resembled the symbol on the black stone of Tom’s gold ring. A triangle that held a circle that held a line that cut down the middle of both. 

Harry’s silver cross became the formerly most powerful silver necklace Tom had encountered. 

The pain was immediate and disorienting and Tom cursed whoever Dumbledore had gotten it from. 

Repelled, Tom fell to the ground and to add further insult to injury he recalled the legend that surrounded phoenixes - they could be reborn.

At that moment Fawkes rose from the ashes and attacked an already injured and weakened Tom. The explosive heat shook Tom to his core and he was reminded of Harry pulling open the curtain of a window of his library many years ago. But this was not as then for it did not feel like a new beginning to Tom but an end. 

A new born chick searched for sustenance. Fawkes sat on him, burning and unpleasant. Tom found that he could not move at all. The gold could not even help him now. 

Dumbledore stood above him, having tucked the silver away. 

“Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?” Dumbledore asked.

Tom could barely get angry at this point. It had been more or less a fair fight, what with Tom trying to summon giant spiders and succeeding and even managing to draw in one cloaked wraith to Dumbledore’s upset astonishment. 

Tom had lost because he was had been overconfident when equipped with his gold. Instead of confirming the phoenix’s demise he had chosen to attack Dumbledore directly and as a result had been caught offguard by the silver symbol.

These mistakes were why he was on the ground now, as befitting a serpent. 

He had not thought that things could get anymore humiliating but now he was in such a state and the victor was rubbing it in his face by asking him a riddle.

“It is a circle.” Tom answered. “There is no start because it’s the same thing no matter which part of it you look at.” 

“Yes.” Dumbledore agreed. “I was in town on the night of your birth and though others have pushed me to act I had not until now because you had been a child. But if a circle is the same then is someone the same no matter if it’s the past, present or future?” This was not asked to Tom for Dumbledore seemed to think that the time to intervene did matter and that one should be allowed to live long enough to be considered as having a past. 

Tom thought of how much he would like to kill the baby chick that was sitting on him. It was close enough to his throat that he felt like he no longer have the ability of speech. 

Dumbledore looked around at the carcasses on the battlefield. “More creatures have been appearing as of late - it is because they are impatient for their Dark Lord.” 

Tom knew what he could do now, of how he could have an army that obeyed him. This battle had taught him as much though experience. Ironically, Dumbledore had taught him. He wondered what he could do if he ever took the first sip of blood. 

Newborns tended to cry and Fawkes did so now. The tears hurt Tom worse than any holy water. He refused to cry out. 

“I thought things could change. But a monster would eat the world so it alone may live and I know that if you were left to your own devices you would encircle the world, consuming everything until there is nothing left to bite but yourself. An ouroboros - immortal and alone.” 

Tom growled, such a fate was at once appealing and repulsive to him. 

“Still, I sense you are not all lost. There is a light you follow and it has kept you from your destiny until now.” Dumbledore said. “I am sorry, but you must seek your guide another way.” 

Fawkes was hungry. He searched and found Tom’s eyes. 

The golden beak dug into the first eye and drank its juices. Deciding the taste was pleasing, he went for seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was refined while listening to “Fire Magic Music” from Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle Opera.
> 
> You can interpret the silver protecting Dumbledore as Grindelwald/Dumbledore if you want but I’m not tagging the fic with that because it’s very minor. 
> 
> The phoenix or the flame riddle is canon from the books as a Ravenclaw dorms password answered by Luna Lovegood. It just struck me as echoing Tom Riddle saying Voldemort is his past, present, and future. A circle is the same all around so the phoenix is the flame is the phoenix. And looking at different parts of an ouroboros it’s still all just the same snake: Tom is Voldemort is Tom. 
> 
> @darklordtomarry, you were so right to be scared when I mentioned cackling at the Fawkes & Dumbledore art. Ehehehe >.>” This chapter was really hard to wrestle into something readable but seeing your ouroboros logo I was like fuck yeah let’s get this shit into shape. 
> 
> I’m not sure if this [one pic](http://holidazehalloween.tumblr.com/post/154537857961/bela-lugosi-gets-lectured-by-santa-at-the-american) will make this chapter better or worse.


	17. Chapter 17

Sixteen-year-old Harry Potter should have been asleep by now but it was a full moon night so he was awake and restlessly reading a book in bed. 

Worry kept him awake for he had a fear that one day Remus would not return the next morning. He was not so much afraid of what Remus could do to other people as much as he feared what they could do to him.

Harry's concern disrupted him from his read and the words simply blurred together without him being able to draw meaning out of it. 

This distraction was enough to stop him from noticing when someone had entered his bedroom.

“Hello, Harry! You’re still awake.” Said the delighted voice of Tom Riddle. Like usual, he had flown over on his winged, skeletal horse. 

Harry stared in disbelief. He even cleaned his glasses but another look showed that Tom was indeed there. "I am beginning to wonder if I should keep our secret after all." He grumbled at last. 

Tom smiled at the mention of their secret. Harry had invited Tom into the Grimmauld Place years ago so he could enter and leave the house as he pleased but there were complications inside the house that Tom only grasped the root of after much investigation and research. Where the Black family's Grimmauld Place now stood there once had been two large neighboring houses, that of the Gaunt and Lestrange families. The Gaunt house had burned down while the Lestrange house was dismantled. Grimmauld Place came latter. It was built up in the area and would absorb a surviving room of each house. One could tell by the architecture of the rooms which the two were because of the differing, older designs. At some point Remus Lupin must have gotten some knowledge of this for he eventually had Harry moved into the Lestrange room, which Tom would discover he could not enter for he needed the permission of that family and Harry could not give it. 

Harry had wondered what was special about his room and Remus had not told him anything except to please stay inside the room at night and not go elsewhere, but to instead sleep as he should.

Tom had given Harry the answer. 

On a previous full moon night, Harry had put his two hands on Tom’s shoulders, pushing Tom against the open doorway of his newly assigned bedroom, and had seen that he could not push Tom through. Tom had faced him, his back to the invisible barrier.

"Sorry - am I hurting you?" Harry had asked upon seeing Tom's strange expression.

Tom had immediately shook his head. It wasn't true and he didn't want Harry thinking that. "No, no. It’s doesn’t hurt at all. It’s like leaning against a wall. I can break a physical wall easily - this I can’t." 

Tom had said this and had allowed Harry to witness that he clearly wasn't normal. But Harry had stepped out and tried to get Tom inside instead of being relieved he could not enter. Harry was curious while others would be spooked. Of course Tom couldn't hide his shock.

"You sure are trying hard to push me into your bedroom, Harry." Tom had said. 

Following that Harry had walked into his bedroom where he proceeded to lie down on the bed and under the covers without bothering to close the door. 

Tom had watched and could do nothing. At least not that night. 

Tom spent a lengthy amount of time researching records and family trees until he tracked down a Lestrange he could reach. He engineered a meeting where he proceeded to use his charisma to get what he wanted. 

It had been honestly tough to fight thoughts of murder. The instantly love-struck girl had actually wanted to touch him and said things like how she would hold his cold hands to warm them up. Eventually, she said Tom could go visit her in any of her houses. He left her life soon after he had barely entered it. Tom’s heart already belonged to another.

Tom got away with three visits before Remus discovered that Tom could now enter Harry's bedroom.

After finding out, Remus shuffled Harry into the Gaunt room, which he thought was the safest room in the house since the Lestrange room had gotten compromised.

The room didn't stop Tom from entering at all. Harry hadn't even lock it and Tom merely turned the doorknob and walked inside. 

The once white stones of the room were grey and green from age and frayed from fire, but it had survived. At the base of a large pillar there were carvings of snakes so lifelike that Tom felt like he could converse with them in their language. The Gaunt room did look quite distinct from the rest of the house. 

“Did you find a Gaunt already?” Harry had asked. “I really hope you didn’t traumatize them too much.”

“Oh, but I traumatize a Gaunt every day.” Tom had cheekily replied. Tom then shared the information of his mother's maiden name. He could freely enter the room that was rightfully his.

“Then I should be the one asking your permission.” Harry had said. “Can I stay in your room, Mr. Gaunt?” 

“Yes, of course.” Tom had answered thickly. He really did not know how he manged to remain on his relatively good behavior when Harry said things like that to him. 

Harry said something about how Professor Lupin would have a fit if he were to find out Tom got into another room again and how it would be better if he didn’t know because Harry did not want the man wearing himself out moving stuff around again. 

Tom eventually managed to understand that Harry had wanted Tom to keep the matter of him being able to walk past the nonexistent barrier of the room as a secret.

Of course Tom had agreed, and when Tom knew Remus was paying attention, he acted like he could not step inside the Gaunt room. 

With this background, whenever Tom entered Harry’s bedroom, in many ways he felt like he was returning to his home. 

Tom knew Harry would not really spill their secret for Harry had been the one to suggest it in the first place.

"I wish you wouldn't antagonize Professor Lupin so much." Harry said. 

Tom shrugged. He could not help it. Remus was not home, not on a full moon night and that was exactly why Tom had chosen this night to visit. A significant obstacle was gone. Creatures of Tom’s persuasion naturally clashed with werewolves and a werewolf’s jaw could rend him to pieces, but Remus was elsewhere now. 

Remus had become Harry’s guardian at his twelfth birthday, but he had been worried because while he could watch Harry for the most part he had to be away on full moon nights. 

“If you’re so worried, I can watch him those nights.” Tom had offered.

Obviously, Remus had rejected this. 

Because Tom couldn’t watch Harry on those nights, he watched Remus. 

Tom had stalked Remus on full moon nights to keep him in check. He would not allow Remus to do something dumb and be sent away from Harry, leaving the boy without a guardian. 

Remus had found out what Tom was doing after a year and had basically told him to piss off in respectful language. Remus said he did not want to and would not rely on Tom, and could control himself on his own rather than become dependent. Following that Tom had only occasionally stalked Remus, two to three stalkings a year and only on nights Remus’ health seemed especially bad and he’d have a hard time. 

Harry was sixteen now and no longer required a legal guardian for decisions or signing permission slips. 

Tom had noted Remus seemed in good health if grouchy, like usual, before this full moon night so Tom did not follow Remus but was in Harry’s room. If Remus knew, Tom wondered if he would have reconsidered refusing to allow Tom to follow him. The man certainly had tried to make things tough for Tom, moving Harry to certain rooms for instance, but even during the time Tom couldn't enter the Lestrange room, Harry simply walked out into the hallways at night though Remus had asked him not to.

"You shouldn't make things so tough for him yourself." Tom quipped.

Harry closed his book and set it down on the night table by his bed, next to Tom’s diary, which he still kept. This did not escape Tom’s notice. 

“Are expecting me to entertain you?” Harry asked. “There is a problem though. You see Tom, most people need something - something called sleep.” 

“You didn’t look like you were interesting in sleeping.” 

“Well I am - ”

“Are you now that I am here?” 

“Um, no. I don’t think I can sleep with you here.”

“You have in the past.” Tom mentioned. When Tom had driven Vernon away for one, and more times since then. “If you won’t sleep, let’s stay awake together and look at the stars.” Tom said, spilling his plan. He simply had too much energy at night and that was when most people were asleep and couldn’t keep him company. 

Harry threw aside the covers and put on his slippers. He even unclasped his silver cross, leaving it on the desk. Another rule broken. Tom watched with interest. 

Harry’s soft and warm pajamas were not at all revealing but Tom smiled like there were, to which Harry gave an exasperated sigh. 

They walked out to a balcony together. 

“It’s beautiful.” Harry said. He mentioned that it had been a while since he could appreciate such sights for the transition to knighthood had kept him busy. 

“It is.” Tom agreed, clearly not looking at the sky. 

Remus was not negligent in teaching Harry about the constellations and Harry mentioned that many members of the Black family were named after stars and constellations. 

Orion the Hunter. Andromeda the Princess. Cassiopeia the Queen. Arcturus, which made up the Herdsman’s left foot. 

It was inevitable that Harry’s attention would be drawn in by the brightest star in the sky, Sirius the Dog Star.

Tom had noticed where his eyes looked. 

“Look, there is Bellatrix the Amazon Star.” Tom said, waving his arms, but Harry was not distracted at all, his frown practically deepening. 

Since they were on the topic of death, Tom decided to distract Harry with mention of his own. 

“There was a time I thought I would never see the stars again.” Tom said. “Because my stepmother poisoned me to death when I was seven.” 

That certainly got Harry’s attention. His head turned from the sky toward Tom. “She did - what - you - ?” He couldn’t quite find the words in his distress. 

“It was like falling asleep.” Tom said. That was a lie, the death had not been peaceful at all. It had been painful and burning, but Tom wanted to comfort Harry and Sirius had died peacefully in his sleep. 

“She killed you.” Harry said, horrified.

“She offered me a poisonous apple. I bit it and died…but I came back.” Tom had died and the buried monster called Lord Voldemort had been significantly uncovered. Still asleep in his coffin, but waiting to wake. There was interest now, in a Harry sans silver cross. 

“How?”

“Death is not so final for everyone it seems. I entered no hell nor limbo.” Tom shrugged. “And now I am here with you.” Tom considered being with Harry the third place that he had not listed. 

“It sounds like you’re putting me on a pedestal again.” Harry said. He had said several times he did not wanted to be put on one but it seemed like every time he attempted to step down, Tom would put him back there.

“But you belong there.” Tom said. “Surely you are not below me.” Harry being underneath him was an interesting concept, but not in terms of who Tom respected and how he ranked people relative to himself. 

“Is above or below you the only two categories you see?” Harry sighed.

“Yes.” Tom said. For him, Harry was the only person in the former category.

“Have you considered that there is a third option?”

“A third?” 

“Equals.” Harry said. “I don’t want to be above you so just treat me as an equal.” 

Equals. Tom was stunned. It had not occurred to him. No one had been his equal so he had looked down on them all, except for Harry, which he had put above himself.

The monster under Tom’s skin was agitated. Ridiculous. Lord Voldemort had no equal. 

Tom thought Harry was too good. It didn’t sound right for to Tom for him to be allowed on the same level as Harry. It would be like bringing him down to Tom’s. Tom expressed this but Harry merely said that was what he wanted - Tom on level with him, and that if Tom ever tried to put him on a pedestal again Harry climb off and smack him with it. 

Tom grinned. “Now I am here with you, but the place I was in before was scary.” Tom murmured, his tone turning somber. He was doing a manipulation, and getting Harry’s sympathy because he had been murdered as a child. Harry surely was aware of this but he didn’t back away when Tom leaned in for a kiss, for equals were allowed to meet in such a way. Something to make it all better. 

It was their first kiss, graceless but passionate and exploratory. Tom would discover he liked Harry pulling at his hair and he liked holding him back. Harry kissed like he had to be sure that Tom was there and Tom did the same. 

Around them the full moon and the stars dimmed, then it was entirely black. Tom realized it was a memory.

The ground was cold and hard. 

—

Harry arrived at the manor, determined to see Tom.

The guards stopped him at the gates. 

Harry could not go in because the workers were busy preparing for the burial of the late Lord Riddle and could not be distracted by allowing guests to enter at this time, one of them explained nervously, recognizing that Harry was a knight. 

Harry then asked for Lord Riddle’s son, Tom Riddle. The guards looked to each other, trying to think of what to say to get Harry to leave. 

“He’s not here, dear.” Said the voice of a person who happened to be outside, looking for roots in the cold earth.

Harry recognized the cook. He had thanked her for baking the chocolate cake he ate at his twelfth birthday after he found out she had made it. 

She informed him that Tom had said he would eat in his garden before going into the woods. 

Harry frowned, he had wanted to find Tom quickly. This complicated things. 

His mood worsened as Tom’s stepmother appeared with a group of soldiers. 

“Lady Cecilia.” Harry said in greeting. 

“Get off my lands.” She said immediately. 

“You mean Tom’s.” Harry said. 

“Dead men can’t inherit and he was dead long ago.” She said.

Harry’s hand had already gone to his sword the moment she had said her second sentence. He recalled a confession Tom had said to him a couple of years ago, on a full noon night. 

“Stop or you and your family will see the gallows.” The Lady of the manor said, backing away. The soldiers around her readied their weapons. 

Harry dropped his hand. There too many soldiers and the consequences for fighting now would be high.

She ordered the guards to put Harry into the dungeons for trespassing. 

“I’ll enter myself.” Harry said. A plan formed in his mind. He dropped his sword and stepped away.

The guards looked suspicious but they picked up his discarded weapon. 

Harry was indeed allowed to walk there himself as the guards nervously escorted him, though he was now unarmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am pulling the “vampires need invites to enter a house” complications from The Vampire Diaries. 
> 
> It’s Harry Potter canon that the Pureblood wizarding families are all connected somehow and the Gaunts are descendants of Salazar Slytherin, and were once wealthy. 
> 
> Thus I made up shit so Grimmauld Place actually holds residences of three families and Remus trying to hide Harry in a place he thinks Tom can’t step inside ends up with Harry sleeping in Tom’s house every night. :P
> 
> Bellatrix wanted to be in this chapter so badly and spiritually she kind of is lol


	18. Chapter 18

Tom stumbled down the forest path. His body did not move in the way he wanted it to in his wounded state, and he was now a blind man. His damaged eyes were dripping red incessantly, staining the white snow with every step he took. 

So what if the phoenix had blinded him? It should have been done long ago, for hadn’t his eyes brought him much grief as everyone avoided him?

But Harry Potter had not. He had looked into his eyes, and loved them…

Harry was why Tom moved still. He wanted to return to him. 

Everything hurt. In theory his remaining senses should be stronger and he supposed they were but it heightened his pain. He had the metallic smell and taste of his own blood, the sound of his rattling breath - it even sounded a bit like that of the tall, black cloaked wraiths! He gripped rough bark and was at least grateful that because his sight was gone his imagination was stronger. 

Tom tried to dip himself into old memories and accidentally remembered the phoenix (Its flame? They were the same) burning him. A ball of fire swooping out of the sky to mutilate and destroy him. 

He scrambled back to a memory of a summer past.

Sun weakened him but he insisted on being out and about with Harry in the heat of the last day of July. Harry’s thirteenth birthday. Tom had vowed to himself he’d suffer every summer if it meant he could spend time with Harry on that day and now he certainly was suffering from the heat. 

They were bickering, with Tom complaining that Harry should have some reasonable birthday, like a date in October or a winter birthday like him. Not blasted July. 

“One more day and it’ll be the autumn August.” Harry responded. “I said you didn’t and shouldn’t come along but you insisted - ” 

“The sun can’t kill me.”

“But you’re all sluggish and irritable.”

Tom really was. He thought his black umbrella would be enough but the July day was punishing him for his hubris. Harry was currently the one holding the black umbrella. It had reached a point where Harry had practically wrestled it away from Tom once it was apparent Tom was too weakened by the sun and needed to conserve his energy, so Harry was now holding it over him. 

Tom managed to purr when Harry placed his hand on his forehead. 

“You’re skin is really hot!” Harry shouted in alarm.

“You think I’m hot?”

“Tom.” Harry said in the irritated tone he used when Tom was purposely being difficult, which was often enough. “You are ruining my birthday.” Tom knew for a fact Harry enjoyed his presence on his birthday.

Harry called for Remus Lupin and this time Tom frowned at the hand that was on his head. 

Remus gave an exasperated sigh that Tom was sure had held concern the sun induced him into imagining. He announced he would go get a coach to bring them back to the indoor rooms of Grimmauld Place. 

Harry brought Tom under the shade of a tree to sit in while they waited, still covering Tom with the umbrella devotedly. 

Tom leaned against Harry’s side. 

Outside of the memory, in the forest, Tom was leaning down dangerously. He fell. 

“I’m fine now.” Tom said and he did think so because Harry had shifted into allowing Tom to rest his head on his lap. 

“No, this isn’t good.” Harry said with his hand on Tom’s forehead. 

Harry looked at the summer sky. There were a few clouds. 

Noticing Harry’s intent expression, Tom asked Harry what he was thinking of. Tom had an interesting view, from where his head was resting he could see Harry’s neck. The silver cross was there like usual.

“There’s some clouds.” Harry said. “I’m going to wish for a summer storm.”

Harry spoke of the humidity in the air, of possibility and how the area was overdue for a good storm. It was a subject he was interested in, did learned about, and had been taught about.

“Don’t use your wish on that.” Tom said, knowing why Harry wanted it. “And besides wishes don’t work if spoken aloud, right?”

But the sky did change. The clouds gathered, before there only seemed to be a few but more gathered until the sun was blocked. Then it began to drizzle. 

Tom took back his umbrella and shielded Harry with it while he got drenched himself. The rain cleansing Tom of heat was welcome and soothing. Tom sighed at the cool relief. 

The rain was gentle at first but it grew stronger, becoming a full thunder and lightning affair by the time Remus was back just in time with a coach.

Once inside the coach, Tom marveled at the storm outside. To him it wasn’t coincidence but something Harry had wished for his sake. The torturous sun was a distant memory. “You overdid it.” Tom said in an awed tone, dumbfounding a Remus who had no context. Harry nodded in agreement from where he was seated on the coach bench that he shared with Remus. Remus had asked that Tom sit on the opposite side by himself since he had been dripping and Tom had complied. 

They made it back to Grimmauld Place safely and there Remus had handed Tom a spare set of his apparel that was kept in the house. It was Remus’ idea to have a change of clothes for Tom around though he did not like it - there were implications, but he had rather Tom wear his own things rather than to wear Harry’s. 

The next day Harry ended up with an illness from yesterday weather. Tom never got ill. 

Tom couldn’t produce warmth but he could be useful when Harry had a fever and needed an ice pack. He crawled into the bed Harry was resting in, not caring that Remus was in the same house and would soon enter the room. 

Tom pressed his forehead to Harry’s, which still had the lightning bolt shaped scar Tom had given him. 

“Mhmm.” Harry made a pleased little sound at the cold interrupting his fever. 

Remus opened the door at that moment with the tray of medicine and food. The tray would have fallen but Tom lazily held the items afloat with his powers, setting it down on Harry’s night table. 

If Remus’ transformations were voluntary Tom did not doubt that he could be mauled by now. 

But Remus was also a patient man, by personality and practice because he had known Sirius Black. 

He doesn’t try to remove Tom but he gave Harry the medicine and watched to make sure that Tom putting forehead next to Harry’s was all he did. 

Tom did this until Harry fell asleep and that was when he had to leave. 

Tom had left and Harry’s fever had broken in the morning. 

It was a good memory for Tom. 

Harry had called that storm for him. 

Tom had been allowed to rest in Harry’s bed and it still astonished him that Harry could fall asleep in his company just like the first time when Harry had, not even on a proper bed, but in a chair by a dining table. 

But now Tom was not lying in a bed but on the ground.

There was always a part of him that was asleep and had roused when he bit the apple at age seven. Though mainly asleep, he now stirred. He was a power that demanded to be awoken, and was desperate now because Tom was close to dying, truly dying without having started his endless, bloody rule. Lord Voldemort clawed at the cover of the casket he had slept in on the landscape of Tom’s soul. 

“Get up.” He ordered, angry at being on the ground. Lord Voldemort was a pitiless tyrant. 

Tom found himself annoying. Harry had been gentle, and told him to be careful with his steps. Couldn't he go back to just imagining Harry? 

But Voldemort raged at his enemies. 

Nighttime approached.

The residents of the forest, particularly the giant spiders, were terrified because Tom was inside. Their numbers had been destroyed by Tom and the person by his side who wielded a silver blade.

They could sense Tom’s fury at the phoenix and its master that had put him in such a state. Tom was try to use the anger to fuel the movement of his limbs. His was a desperate clutching, he would not be surviving if not for the energy he was drawing out from the locket and ring.

His hands clutched the dirt. A drop of the blood dripping from his ruined eyes fell on the stone of his ring. 

Tom got to his feet.


	19. Chapter 19

Harry was in the dungeon. He did not have his sword and his hands were chained. They had even taken his glasses.

He dozed off for he had ill rest the night before. In his dream he saw a shadowed Tom. He wanted to look him in the eyes but Tom’s face was covered and he turned away. 

“Don’t look away.” Harry pleaded. He was desperate to see the bright red of Tom’s eyes. 

He reached a hand out but Tom stopped it.

“I’m sorry.” Tom whispered. 

Harry was abruptly awaken from his dream by the arrival of the Lady of the manor.

Harry hated her company, especially since it had jostled him from Tom’s.

She was trying to remind Harry that he didn’t have to be jailed.

“Having you rot here would waste such a fine young man.” She said, and this time Harry could not stop her from touching at his hair. 

Harry frowned.

“Just stop following my son and instead follow me and - ”

“No.”

“I am giving you an opportunity.” 

“Did you ever let Tom have any?”

“What? Opportunities? A chance to kill me like the others he’s killed?” The Lady growled. 

“The chance to live.” Harry said. “What did he do when he was seven? That you fed him poison instead of food?”

“He needed to die.” The Lady said. “And you’ll join him unless you join me.”

“I’ll follow him anywhere.” Harry said. 

“You would follow that murderer - ”

“He’s had to defend himself and his right to life since he was a boy - ”

“He’s done it so well!” The stepmother sneered, hateful yet acknowledging Tom’s abilities. “Those bodies have to had gone somewhere. Don’t you know where he hides them?”

Tom had not told him directly but Harry suspected. He figured out things even if he was not told. 

“The garden.” Harry murmured. 

“Yes, and he’s taken you there often.” The Lady said. “Aren’t you scared he would bring you there one day to stay forever?”

“That is your own fear.” Harry said. “And you have it still.”

“He’s truly dead now!” The stepmother said with unsteady triumph. “The mirror said so.”

“He’s not.” Harry said, not certain what she meant by a mirror. But he was certain Tom would not die easily. 

“He’s dead.” She repeated. “You’ll join him once you’re beheaded in the morning, in front of everyone.” 

The Lady left, ordering the room to be locked securely behind her. 

After she exited Harry waited until he certain no one would see him or check on him. 

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated, imagined. 

He opened his eyes when he felt the weight on his hand. 

His silver sword was in the cell with him. 

He worked on using it to undo the chains binding his hands and feet.

—

Tom had no sight but he could sense the weight displaced by the shadow summoned by the blood that had fallen on the black stone of his gold ring. He was used to its weight and now the locket around his neck felt heavier than normal. 

“Tom?” It was a ghostly woman’s voice. 

Tom didn’t answer with words yet. He didn’t know how he knew but he did. 

He gave a wet, rattling laugh. 

“Yes. It’s me, mother.” Tom confirmed. “Why now?” Tom had wanted to see Merope as a child, and now here she was, when he couldn’t see! 

He had put so much roses by her grave, begging for her presence.

She was already dead. He thought it unfortunate that he could not kill her. 

“Just now, you cried.” Merope answered. “When you were born, you didn’t cry at all…”

Tom wanted to laugh again. This involuntary dripping of his mutilated eyes was called crying? And here she was now playing the part of a dedicated mother who had come because her child had cried for her? 

If she was in the mood to answer questions then…

“Why did you leave me?” Tom asked. 

“I was so scared, Tom.” She answered. “I’m so sorry. You were born and I knew - ”

“What I could be?” Tom interrupted. He wondered what she had seen. His true self. It had caused her to die. 

“I knew what I had wished for had come true. I realized what had been granted, what you were born as, your unfulfilled destiny.”

“Destiny?”

“Unending life…unending terror for everyone else.” Tom could feel the very faint pressure of a comforting hand on his cheek. Now that his eyes were gone, his other senses picked up the slack.

“So you knew.” Tom said. “I was a monster. I am a monster. I still have the potential.” Past, present, future. What did it matter when a circle was a circle and an ouroboros was an ouroboros? Though he had not yet bitten his own tail, sealing the circle. “What a pity the problem isn’t solved yet.” Tom said. “I still cling to “life”.” The phoenix had not finished him off. It had taken his eyes because it had been hungry. “I refuse to die, mother. You left me and I refuse to be in the place you are.”

“I want to help and guide you, Tom.” Merope said, and it didn’t even sound like an offer but a plead for forgiveness. 

Guidance now? “I don’t want or need anything from you.” Tom said. At least her appearance had suppressed Voldemort. Anything she offered now was too little and too late. 

But he had yearned for maternal affection once, had he not? He thought of a candied apple. 

“I only want meet the one I love again. If I can find him, that is all that matters.” Tom said. He wanted to be in Harry’s presence, to hear his voice, and breath in his scent. Tom did not say Harry because she did not deserve to know Harry’s name. 

“I will guide you to safety.” Merope promised. 

Would she? Tom wondered. Should he trust her when she had never been there for him before? Didn’t she have a chance to finish off the monster she knew he was and when he was in such a state?

Had Tom been in decent condition he would have noticed his entire conversation with his mother had been in hisses. 

Tom followed her, paying attention to the spot of cold and displaced air that signal her presence. 

Bones crunched underfoot.

Tom sensed danger.

There was something large and fast. He couldn’t dodge in his current state - 

—

Harry broke the lock of the door with his sword after he had removed his restraints. 

He was expectant and ready to fight upon leaving the room. He had thought to disguise as a member of the staff or as a guard. 

Instead, he found that the guards were already unconscious. 

The cook was surprised to see Harry as she finished looting the keys.

She was delighted Harry had gotten out, admitting that she had slipped sleeping medication into the gruel and beer for the guards. 

Harry thanked her and she shooed him off, reminding him that Tom had told her he would go into the woods. 

Harry nodded and left the dungeons. He had to reach the woods. 

—

A honeymooning couple was living in a cottage in the forest, a relatively isolated and unusual property but in the man’s family. It was a family with many members, and wealth that was not proportionate. There were less options on where to stay. The cottage with its weird location was one of the few choices and they were there. He was happy his wife was with him so it did not matter to him that the cottage was in a creepy forest. His older twin brothers, knowing that he was scared of regular spiders, had told him that the forest held giant spiders. They often told jokes or pulled pranks so he surely thought they were joking then. It was a big forest. Maybe he would not run into any if they were indeed there. 

Currently, the man was seated on the outside, thinking to himself that the forest was just too unusually quiet tonight. It was strange enough for him to scratch the red hair on his head. Yesterday, he had a very good Yule day and night with his wife, a refreshing break from spending it with his large family though he missed them too. But having a cottage to themselves was so very nice. This night was strange though. 

The silence was disturbed by the sound of something coming out of the forest. 

The man tensed. 

“Oh, it’s you.” The man recognized the large snake that was crawling out from the trees. 

He had warned his wife not to be bleeding heart. To give a wild animal fresh water and a fire to curl up next to in the cold winter would only encourage it to return and visit. Wild animals are wild he had reminded her. It wasn’t a cat. Ironically, the man was the snake’s favorite resident of the cottage though his wife gave more care and attention because he fed it a rat once.

Sometimes the man entertained fantasies of the snake paying them back for the kindness someday. It would bring back a treasure, like in a fairytale. 

But this was reality. 

The snake did appeared to be moving slower than usual and the man knew the snake could move fast despite its size, for he had seen it in action. It was dragging something. It was a long snake so the man didn’t see what was at the end yet. 

When the man could make out what it was, he gave a loud scream. 

The cottage door opened and the man’s wife stepped outside. “Ron, what’s going on - aaaaahhhhhh!”

No, the snake had not brought them a treasure as repayment but a corpse. The man thought. He looked again. 

The corpse was wearing a gold locket and a gold ring.


	20. Chapter 20

The man and woman were both very stressed. 

“Well, you have more experience when it comes to these kind of things, Hermione.” The man said. 

“These things, Ronald?” The woman asked her husband. 

Ron knew that he was in danger if she said his name like that. 

“You know, you have a cat.” Ron said weakly. “Sometimes it drags in a dead thing or two right? 

“This isn’t a bird or a mouse, this is a body!” Hermione said in a near shout, but she kept her volume low because because she did not want to wake the dead. “His eyes…they’re - ” 

“Practically empty sockets.” Ron swallowed, touching a cold and pale hand. He bravely tried to check for a pulse rather than having his wife undergo the risk. “He’s alive.” Ron murmured in disbelief once he found a weak but certainly present pulse. 

The snake had not stopped hissing. It was a near continuous stream. 

That was another reason for Ron and Hermione’s stress. They had no idea what it was saying but it must mean for someone to understand it. The nearly dead body?

Tom’s eyes were out but his ears worked fine. The serpent was helpfully informing him of his surroundings. It told him that her name was Nagini. 

Nagini told him that he was outside a small cottage. Besides Tom and her, there were two occupants. A eggshell-skinned man with bright red hair. A chestnut-skinned woman with bushy brown hair. The snake gave extra, unneeded information. She liked the man’s countless freckles and the woman’s voluminous tresses. She said the place was cozy and she liked curling up by the fire.

Tom comprehended the information but he was having trouble with his body. It wasn’t cooperating. 

“We should get him inside and off the ground.” Hermione said. 

“We’re really going to bother - ?” 

She gave a sharp look.

“Okay.” Ron sighed.

He tried to move the body and the man with damaged eyes was surely weak but he was resisting being dragged into the cottage.

“Calm down, we want you inside so we can get you fixed up!” Ron said.

Having received the invitation, Tom stopped his struggle and allowed himself to be carried past the now unresisting boundary of the cottage.

—

Harry was about to step out of the manor, wondering where the guards that should have tried to stop him were.

Remus Lupin found him and Harry was descending the last stairs and without his glasses he could not comprehend the brief glimpse of the outside that had been visible when Remus had opened the door to enter before closing it. 

Harry informed Remus on what had happened and that he was unharmed. Remus put down his silver tipped lance before giving Harry a spare pair of glasses held in his gloved hands. He tried to explain the current situation. 

The armed forces the Lady had not hoarded to her part of the manor were outside fighting. There hadn’t been guards to spare. 

“The forces of the night had emerged once the sun had disappeared.” Remus said. It was a subdued statement that could have been lengthier but Remus wanted to convey things simply. He also knew that Harry could just see things for himself. 

Bracing himself, Harry opened the door of the manor that lead to the outside. 

Harry stepped out and saw a nightmare made real. 

The landscape was a battlefield, filled with battalions of Dark creatures. 

There were the shambling dead that had risen from their graves. There were giant spider weaving their webs. The night air was made colder by happiness disappearing into black cloaks. 

Harry threw his sword at a ragged black cloak before it could press its face to a terrified soldier’s. 

Struck, it was surrounded by light and shrieked. Before its stilled cloak touched the ground, Harry’s sword was already back in his hand. 

Their were people that Tom had managed to convince to his side, and there were his stepmother’s soldiers. It did not matter to the opposing factions for both sides were desperately trying to fight off the Dark creatures instead of each other. 

Harry’s sword spun. He swung and threw, ever accurate and swift. 

“Why is this happening, Professor?” Harry asked Remus who was using his lance as much as Harry used his sword. 

“It’s because Tom isn’t here.” Remus admitted. “There must be a balance…he - without him these creatures are here. Because the sum of his presence is gone.” 

Harry did not like what he was hearing. It implied that the sum of Tom’s darkness was quite vast. “That’s a rubbish theory.” Harry said. 

“All I know is that these creatures have reappeared over time, as he grew older. I think they are impatient.” Remus clenched his hands, his nails drew blood. “They want a kingdom on earth with him as their Lord.” This was important, privileged knowledge and Remus was admitting that his werewolf self felt the call to join Voldemort’s side, for werewolves would side with someone who would provide them with bodies. The giant spiders, walking corpses, and soul-sucking wraiths felt the same. 

“The creatures aren’t attacking us.” Harry said, referring to himself and Remus. 

“They aren’t attacking you, Harry.” Remus corrected. 

Harry tried not to dwell on what that meant. 

“I’m going to head into the woods.” Harry announced. 

The soldiers immediately panicked. “No we need you here, Sir Potter! Please help us!”

“I have to find Tom.” Harry said. He had to ignore their pleas. 

“Oh!” Said a soldier who had heard the rumors that if Tom were to return the monsters would disappear. “Yes, please go find him!” The soldier was rather terrified of Tom, especially with the implications that the currently present creatures feared and looked to Tom, and were here because he wasn’t. But he rather that there was one Tom around and not an insane army of beasties, and other soldiers agreed. 

Remus did not argue even if it looked like he wanted to. Instead, he supported the soldiers as Harry walked away. 

—

Harry stopped at Tom’s rose garden, about to enter the woods through the entrance near it. 

As he was about to go into the woods he was stopped by a skeletal horse.

Harry had seen one before, a few times, but he had never been close enough to actually see its leathery wings up close. 

It was expectant, bending its legs and sitting, like it wanted Harry to ride on its back. 

Harry did and once he did so it began to move, riding into the forest. Harry held on, letting it lead. He’s so intent on finding Tom he doesn’t notice when he rides right past a spectacled old man.

The forest was quiet around him for the things that once lived in it were outside and making Little Hangleton a battleground. 

The strange horse stopped once it arrived at a circular clearing. 

Knowing that it wanted to leave, Harry thanked it for getting him here. 

It flew off and Harry looked around.

The place smelled of of ashes. There was blood over the white snow. There were bodies but none were Tom’s. 

No. 

_No._

Harry gasped the word twice, one for each phoenix feather on the ground, for it was surely what the golden-red feathers were, still warm though they had likely fallen awhile ago. 

He thought about what a phoenix could do to Tom, who had been hurt by sunlight on their first meeting. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

He touched the bloodied snow. Grief seized his heart and he seized the snow. The blood fell back to the ground, where it moved and began slithering a trail along the snowy path. 

Harry followed, his feet guiding a heavy heart. 

—

Ron stared at the body. He knew now that the body was technically alive but it was still so corpse-like. 

So much for his honeymoon getaway that was suppose to be just him and his wife.

In the guest bedroom, he was alone with Sleeping Beauty. 

Ron could acknowledge when a guy had good looks without being jealous by now. He was married to the love of his life. Hermione had looked, but it was in a clinical way and Ron had noticed a tiny blush but it was hard not to even for him and the guy looked half-dead and was missing his eyes. 

Ron also thought the stranger could be called Snow White. 

He had porcelain skin and pitch back hair, but no red rosy cheeks unless cheeks stained red with blood counted. 

Ron tried to take care of things by bandaging the man’s injuries. Everything had been going okay until Ron tried to move the gold locket aside so he could tend to a wound it was on. 

The body hadn’t moved until then but Ron’s fingers had barely brushed against the necklace, the shadows shook and he found a hand gripping his arm. The hand had moved sluggishly and it must have taken a great deal of painful effort. Ron had a feeling the stranger was usually faster and if the man was in his regular condition (regular for whatever he was), Ron would be dead or at least horribly maimed. 

Ron screamed in fear, ceasing to touch the locket and trying to retract his hand. The body hissed. 

The snake hissed back furiously. 

“Listen, I won’t touch your jewelry. Just let me take care of the rest of your injuries. I was just trying to move it away, it’s not like I’m going to _break it_ or something!”

Ron feared it would get tighter but the grip slackened until Ron could pull his smarting hand away to safety. 

There were more hisses from the man that Ron could not understand. 

Ron watched as the snake slithered across the man’s chest, moving the necklace so it was to the side and by the man’s head rather than on his chest. 

Ron was sure by now the man and the snake could understand each other and they were communicating. It was a disturbing thought. Hermione had put it forward as a theory and he had dismissed it. (“So it's a seeing eye snake, Hermione? Really?”) But now he agreed with her. 

Hermione ran into the room, demanding to know what was going on because she had heard Ron scream. She had a book in one hand and a halfway mixed salve in the other. 

“I’m alright, Hermione.” Ron said. “Everything is good. You keep working on those salves and I will get Snow White all patched up.”

“Snow White?”

“Well, he isn’t sleeping anymore.” Ron grumbled. 

“Hmm.” Hermione said, considering the nickname. She noticed that the shadows in the room were not still but calming down from some agitation. 

She nodded and left because Ron motioned for her to leave. 

Ron stared at the green serpent. “Thank you, giant snake. I am not sure how but I think you saved my life. I will get you more rats, like ten of them.”

Ron wasn’t sure but it made a noise that sounded happy. It was odd he was so used to its presence that he could recognize a happy hiss when he heard it. 

Ron resumed bandaging. It occurred to him that it was the snake’s fault in first place for bringing Snow White to his cottage. 

“This is your fault.” Ron said. 

The snake hissed like it could understand him.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sources vary, I’ve read that Skoll and Hati are Fenrir’s children and they eat the sun and moon but I’ve also read that Fenrir is the wolves himself and he eats the sun and moon. 
> 
> This chapter is for the Harrymort fans :)

In another story… 

The trickster god Loki had three children with the giantess Angrboda. 

Two sons - Jormungand the serpent and Fenrir the wolf, and one daughter - Hel the ruler. 

Like his brother, Jormungand had an appetite, and when he was but a thread, Odin tossed him into the oceans of the world. Instead of perishing, there he would eventually grow large enough to surround the earth and end up with his head by his tail, which he held in his mouth. He gained the title of World Serpent and would be an ouroboros until Ragnarok - the end of the world, and when he would release his tail. 

At Ragnarok, his brother Fenrir would escape his fetters and eat the sun and moon. His sister Hel would gather her dead for their father’s army. 

Upon letting go of his own tail, Jormungand would come out of the ocean to poison the sky and battle his arch-nemesis, the god of thunder Thor. 

They would destroy each other. 

Thor would slay Jormungand, but upon walking nine steps he would succumb to the serpent’s venom.

…but this is not that story. 

—

The trail of blood eventually ended. It shouldn’t have been a surprise for it had grown weaker the longer Harry had followed it. 

He stood by where the blood had stopped and began to engross himself in setting up a camp as a way to restrain his tears. He needed to rest. He also had the feeling that he would find a clue in his dreams.

Harry took off his glasses and shut his eyes.

In the dream, Harry found himself in a graveyard.

“Why am I in a graveyard?” Harry asked. 

“Because I am here and this is where the dead belong,” said Tom Riddle’s disembodied voice.

“You’re not dead yet.” Harry said.

“I’m not?”

“I haven’t found you yet.” 

An echoing laugh.

“Where are you, Tom?”

“Do you really want to find me?”

“Yes.” Harry said, upset he could only hear Tom’s voice but not see him even though Harry was looking through the gravestones. 

“If you find me, you’ll notice I am…different.” Tom said. “And there’s things you should know. You’d reconsider searching for me.” 

“I won’t change my mind, but you can go ahead and try.”

"My stubborn Harry," Tom sighed, "always giving me chances I do not deserve..."

"I'll be the judge of that." Harry said. "Now, was that your attempt?" 

"I have a question to ask you."

“What is it?" Harry asked uneasily, not liking how Tom sounded like he wanted to hide.

“Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?”

“Are you seriously asking me a riddle?”

“Please answer, Harry.”

“I’m not sure if it makes a difference.” Harry said. “Isn’t the flame a part of the phoenix and vice versa?”

“Yes.” Tom answered. “My past, present and future. It’s all the same. I was once a small snake and now I am a large one. I would be on the path I walk even if I had not died that winter day. It would have happened, sooner or later.” 

“What?” Harry said. Harry wondered if the riddle had been a test and how he answered it had decided if Tom would appear or not. “Tom!”

There was no answer. 

“No!” Harry shouted, “Tom - you git! You don’t get to ask me a riddle and then leave!” 

Harry ran through the graveyard, which in a dream stretched further than a regular one would. 

He stopped in his tracks because something had caught his eye. 

It was a clear crystal casket that he could see the inside of. 

There was a tall body in the upright coffin. Pale bald head, black robes, closed eyes.

Harry wondered at their color, would it be a beautiful red?

The form was different but Harry had a feeling. 

There was no one else to ask except the body in the coffin, but he was sleeping. 

Harry had an uneasy, insecure feeling, not really about the man overall, but about his eyes. Could they open? He had to see if they were whole.

Harry touched the see-through lid of the coffin with one hand. It did not yield. Frustrated by the barrier, Harry struck it like one would rattle the cage of a dangerous animal. 

He could see the man’s spidery hands shift where they were cross over the center of his chest but he did not wake. 

Harry used his other hand, which had a little cut on the palm from when he had undone his shackles. This time it went right through and Harry ended up touching the man’s robes. 

The cold that radiated through made Harry reflexively retract his palm.

The man in the coffin uncrossed his arms, before stilling again, his hand ran over where Harry had touched him. His eyes were still closed. 

Harry examined his hand and noticed the blood on it.

He had read a tale before. Maybe he was confusing two. Something about a beauty sleeping in a castle or in a casket - though the man before him was certainly not a beauty. 

Harry had already resolved he would wake the man to question him.

With this objective in mind, Harry bit his lips until they bled. He had to grip the sides to the coffin and stand on his toes because the other man was annoyingly taller. 

Harry leaned forward, hoping he would not be embarrassingly kissing glass.

The worry was unfounded because he passed through and his lips touched the sleeping man’s. 

The reaction was instantaneous. He woke up and went for Harry’s neck but Harry’s silver cross repelled him and Harry stepped back. 

Harry 's heart pounded as he observed that while the man was now awake, the lid was back on and he could not leave the container’s confines. 

“Tom Marvolo Riddle?” Harry asked. 

“I am Lord Voldemort.” The robed man answered. 

Harry looked. Tom sounded different from this high and cold voice. But Voldemort’s eyes were serpentine and red. The two were related. 

“Voldemort.” Harry said in the same way he said Tom.

Voldemort stared back. He had awoken to someone looking at him like something precious, their expression full of relief. It confused him. So did that same man saying his name so casually, without an ounce of fear. 

“Where are you?” Harry asked. It was a demand. 

“The forest.” Voldemort said. 

Harry’s happy expression turned to one of irritation. 

Voldemort wondered what he had done. He had graciously answered the question of one who sought death.

"The forest.” Harry grit out. “I know that. But where in the forest are you? Forests tend to be _large_ , with trees that look the _same_." 

Voldemort frowned. The man getting testy with him because he had not found his answer satisfactory? 

“What would I get for answering you?” Voldemort asked, licking at the blood left on his lips. It had been delicious but far too meager. 

“You can touch me in the waking world when I find you.”

Interesting, but not yet possible. Voldemort was not truly awake yet, and was only so in this dream. There were things he needed to be present in reality. 

“I want your blood and your life.” Voldemort said. “Surrender both to me or you will not find me at all.” 

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Voldemort echoed. “You will be mine.”

“You will be mine.” Harry repeated. 

Voldemort slammed his hands against the barrier of the coffin. No, this was not how that worked. It was only one-way, his way. 

“I want you.” Harry said, and the words sounded familiar to Voldemort. “And you want me, so tell me where you are and I’ll surrender myself to you.”

Voldemort was suspicious. It was a deal where only one person stood to gain all while the other lost all. He should be afraid of what Voldemort would do to him but he had readily accepted the offer. Voldemort was also confident, what could the man do to Voldemort that was possibly worse than what Voldemort could do to him? 

“In the for - ” Voldemort began. 

“I swear if you say forest again - ”

“I am in a cottage in the forest.”

That was barely a clue. Harry needed more quickly. He knew he would wake soon and Voldemort would be gone. 

“I need more information for our deal to work.” Harry said. “Tell me more. Please.”

“You have something of mine.” Voldemort said. “All this time you’ve kept it by your side. It should help you now.”

A riddle. Harry had not doubted, but if he had, this was conclusive proof. Voldemort was Tom. 

Harry woke up. He had bitten his lip in his sleep and now he tasted blood. 

Harry put his hand into the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a diary. He opened it.

The petals of a rose, long pressed and preserved between its pages, floated out. They moved. 

Harry followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter can basically be summarized [in one gifset](http://darklordtomarry.tumblr.com/post/154205726419/vivienvalentino-tom-is-a-dramatic-hoe-and-I%20).


	22. Chapter 22

Ron and Hermione had managed to get some sleep because they had curled together in the main bedroom but it had been uneasy because of their mysterious guest in the guest bedroom.

It hadn’t helped that they occasionally woke to the sound of hissing.

Ron was making breakfast with Hermione in the kitchen and while in the same space he tried to convince her through bleary yawns that the snake was bad for dragging the unknown man in.

“I was right, Hermione.” Ron said, and he had to take the chance to say the phrase because his wife was usually the one who said it to him. “I said if we were nice to the snake it would think it can bring in its friends and look what happened!”

“The snake brought in an injured friend.” Hermione said. “So I think she is a good snake.” Hermione had paid attention and knew the snake was female.

“Yeah, yeah.” Ron said. “All I know is I got to make food for three or four now.” He did not really mind for learning how to make food for a larger amount of people was something he had to learn in his household.

Ron kissed her, and she returned the kiss, hugging him. Their argument was forgotten. Ron would have made the kiss deeper but Nagini slithered in and the two of them jumped apart at the same time, both thinking that Nagini could report to the man she had dragged to their doorstep.

They both sighed and Ron grasped her hand. Hermione squeezed back and they were like that for a moment before both turned to the tasks they still needed to do.

Ron stepped outside to gather chicken eggs from the coop that had taken the longest time to make snake-proof.

He noticed there was something in the chicken coop that should not be there.

A large toad.

Ron picked it up and discovered it had been sitting on a chicken egg. Ron snorted, what had it been trying to do, hatch it?

Ron collected the egg it had been sitting on and a few more, deciding the weird one that toad had sat on should be made into an omelet for the guest in his cottage. Ron placed the eggs in a basket and took it out with him along with the toad, which he meant to drop on the ground gently but it fell right from his hands when he saw the person standing outside.

The eggs would have fallen too but Ron had held onto the basket. The toad landed safely but Ron was not paying attention because his eyes were drawn to Snow White, who looked even scarier in motion than as a corpse.

For the third time, Ron screamed because of him.

Hermione shortly ran to the outside. “Oh, you’re awake.” She observed. She also noted the unknown man had managed to make it outside without her or Ron’s notice. He was standing in the shade, and out of the sun.

“You could have told us.” Ron complained at the man.

Snow White, clothed in white bandages stained with red turned his dark-haired head toward him.

“I assume you two are the newly weds who took me inside their cottage.” He said. “How awfully trusting. How did you two ever manage to sleep?”

“We barely did.” Ron said. “And you’re welcome - without us you would have bleed to death in the snow, or wild animals would have eaten you.”

“Ron…” Hermione sighed. “We wouldn’t have left you outside.” She said toward the stranger. “And you still need to recover so please go back inside. There will be breakfast in a moment - Ron was just getting some eggs.”

“No.” Their guest said, turning away. “I have to go.” He staggered.

“You can’t leave!” Hermione protested.

“Can’t I?” The man said, his voice deceptively calm.

“Hey, I’m the one who applied your bandages and I know your state’s still shit!” Ron said. “Stay, you’ll need new ones.”

“You two may have helped me, but now you’re just in my way.” Snow White growled.

“How dare you threaten her!” Ron said angrily for her sake though he had been threatened too. He moved to stand in front of Hermione. He would have been a odd defender if Tom could see for Ron had no weapon in his hand but a basket of eggs.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Hermione said with finality.

They were both audacious and despite himself, Tom was reminded of the person he missed.

Tom thought he would cut them both down if he had to. He had to leave and find Harry. Enough time had been wasted although he knew that the bandages and salves had helped stabilized his condition.

Nagini made her appearance, hissing at Tom before he could make his thought a reality.

Her words were reasoning and motherly. She told him that going out in the morning sun to find his mate was a bad idea. It would be better for Tom to stay put and wait, rather than Tom perishing before then.

Tom paused.

Ron and Hermione also froze, watching.

“Hmph.” Tom said. “I’ll have to stay put for now.”

He allowed Nagini to guide him back into the cottage and Hermione and Ron went inside before him.

Ron set down the basket of eggs in the kitchen. He ate a few slices of bread and announced he would apply fresh bandages before eating a full breakfast.

Hermione agreed with leaving that work to him while she continued to work on breakfast and some water for the snake.

Ron asked Tom if he’d like any breakfast but Tom said he’d rather just get the fresh application over with.

They were in the guest bedroom again.

“It’s a good thing you decided to stay.” Ron said. “If Hermione said you’re not leaving, you’re not gonna.”

Tom stayed quiet while Ron removed old bandages and added new ones. Tom would rather Ron be silent but he supposed it was helped the man’s nerves to hear his own voice uselessly babble.

“When I first met her I thought she was a stickler for the rules and procedure.” Ron said. “You know, the set down kind like the laws saying you shouldn’t litter or talk loudly in the library…okay, she does take that last one a bit too seriously. But actually once she decides on something and on what’s right, the rules must bend to follow that track. Or go out the window.”

“Oh? Say, the rule that you shouldn’t let in strange and potentially murderous bloody men of unknown origin and motive so openly into one’s cozy little cottage?” Tom asked.

“Er, yeah.” Ron said. He had not expected Tom to answer.

“You’re surprisingly good at applying bandages.” Tom said now that he was lucid enough to notice.

“You’re surprised?” Ron said in offense. “Hey - don't look at me with your freaky not there eyes. I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Well, you are doing fine, even if your concentration’s supposedly shot.” Tom said. “You just struck me as the incompetent type.”

It was blunt and tactless. Tom was not bothering to trick and charm, but was being his true rude self. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to bother with the effort but rather it was out of respect.

“Hermione’s the competent one.” Ron admitted easily. “I have some skills. And I thought you’d notice I’m slower today because my arm’s a bit wonky.”

“Something happened to it?”

“Uh, you don’t remember almost crushing my arm because I touched your necklace?”

“You did?”

Ron cursed under his breath. Why did I admit to that?

“The technique’s good.” Tom said, a small smile building at Ron’s discomfort. He still felt the weight of his locket and ring. Nothing was out of place.

“Thanks.” Ron said, “It’s from experience. I have alot of siblings and they get into all kinds of bumps and scrapes. Especially the twins - brothers, they’re older than me but when something happens and they’re both injured, I’m the one that has to - ”

Ron had gotten carried away and rambled in his nervousness. He was suddenly frightened, like he realized he shouldn't have mentioned the family he had to this weird and dangerous stranger. It was one thing for Tom to know about Hermione because she was in the cottage but this was too much.

Tom recognized Ron’s anxiety. “What’s the matter?” Tom asked. “Do you regret mentioning them because now that I know - I might hunt them down?” Tom grinned. He couldn’t help it. He was injured and bored. He needed entertainment.

Ron’s anger was palpable and Tom wanted to see if his face was red as his hair.

The hands had stopped moving

Tom tried to handle the rest but the bandages were taken from him.

“Just rest, I'm taking care of it.” Ron said, clearly still angry. But he continued working like Tom was one of his siblings.

“I’m an only child.” Tom said, thinking sharing such personal information was alright because of what Ron had shared about himself. “I wonder what having siblings would be like.”

“Well, good luck getting parental attention in a big family with lots of siblings.” Ron said.

Tom’s mood darkened. Again, the shadows rattled.

Oh boy. Ron recognized that parents were a touchy topic. Ron’s self preservation instincts were screaming at him to change the topic.

“I’m done!” Ron declared. “Would you like some breakfast from the kitchen? Hermione’s probably done by now!”

Tom did not really want breakfast but he would rather be up and about. Lying down, he just felt pathetic.

They go to the kitchen.

Nagini was already there enjoying the oven and a water bowl. She informed Tom of the silverware in the house.

Tom looked in the direction of the cabinet in the kitchen, and searched with his shadows. He recoiling upon confirming that there was indeed silverware stored inside.

Both Ron and Hermione noticed Tom eyeing the silverware. They reached different conclusions.

Ron was aware of the gold that Tom wore and even if his clothes had been tattered they were still noticeably made of fine materials. Tom had to be a noble of some kind.

Ron addressed Tom. “Listen, I know you may be used to dining on silverware but the silverware in the cabinet is for special occasions only.” Ron thought but did not say that Tom’s appearance was nothing to celebrate. “My family can’t easily afford such things but it's been in the family for awhile now, and my mum gifted it to me and Hermione for our wedding.” Ron wondered if he had blabbed too much again and he would be annoyed if Tom would look down at him for not being wealthy. What if he insisted on using fancy plates? “We are not eating eggs off of the silverware.” He concluded resolutely.

He hoped Snow White would not challenge him.

“Wooden plates are fine.” Tom said. “There is no need to bring out the silverware at all.”

Ron relaxed.

Hermione saw Tom’s unusual teeth. “The canine teeth are a bit pointier than average.” She said it aloud and immediately regretted the faux pas.

Tom smiled, emphasizing said teeth. That’s what she paid attention to? Usually people noticed his red eyes first but currently they were pecked out hollows.

“Her parents are both dentists.” Ron said. It was another nervous statement and he was trying to help by giving a reason for Hermione’s outburst just now in hopes that their guest would forgive the statement he had surely registered as rude.

“Oh.” Tom said, seeking entertainment. “I will keep that in mind. When I am better I will look for a pair of red headed twin boys and a married dentist couple.”

Tom Riddle’s dark and dry humor, where he said his jokes with a serious and calm expression, tended to confuse people who could not phrase his intent.

Now, Ron and Hermione could not tell whether their guest was joking or serious about hunting down the newlyweds’ family members.

“A little joke.” Tom said, showing mercy. He wished Harry were present to appreciate his humor, and his was a wishful thought for Harry did not often appreciate it either. “I’m not hungry.” He said, and he had actually reduced his hosts’ appetites too.

He said he was not trying to leave but wanted to wait outside.

Hermione followed him.

She watched from the door and left him alone once she paid attention for a bit to how the sunlight interacted with him or how he avoiding interacting with it.

Tom considered opening the chicken coop for Nagini, who had followed him.

She said she would be hunting and asked if Tom wanted anything.

Tom politely declined and thanked her for care, while asking if she wanted anything from the chicken coop.

Nagini declined his offer as well and said she did not want to trouble the people who lived in the cottage.

Their exchange complete, Nagini slithered away to hunt and Tom was alone again.

He tried to recall what he had dreamed of last night. It seemed important but the details escaped him. He could remember nothing but being in the Little Hangleton Graveyard.

Tom was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps.

“I really do not want breakfast.” Tom said. He hoped neither the man or woman had emerged with silverware at the ready. Nagini had warned Tom the woman was smart and Tom should hide what he was. Did she figure out this quickly? Or worse, would she force him to have breakfast “for his own good”?

“Tom.” Said an anguished and familiar voice.

He felt fingers gently touch his crimson cheeks, and warm tears.

“Harry.” Tom whispered.


	23. Chapter 23

Tom recollected a time where Harry had hugged him and cried except now the tears were because Harry was upset over him. Harry’s hands were careful, mindful of his bandaged wounds. 

“I’m sorry.” Tom said, knowing that he had to apologize. 

“You better be.” Harry said. “After what you put me through, though you did help me find you…barely.” Harry added, thinking of Tom’s alter-ego which was still Tom himself. 

Before Tom could question that last statement, Harry asked him one. 

“Who did this to you?” Harry cupped Tom’s face and Tom wanted to lean into it and the scent of his skin. 

“I was an overconfident fool who went and got myself blinded by a phoenix.” Tom explained. “And I underestimated the bird’s master.”

Harry’s hands left his face but Tom’s distress disappeared when the hands touched him again, but on his body. 

“A phoenix.” Harry murmured, having heard Tom confirm what he had concluded from the feathers. “Is that why these wounds have not healed?”

“It will take time.” Tom said, and he wanted Harry’s hands to stay on him during the entire process. If that were the case he could even thank the phoenix for the severe injuries. “I believe phoenix have healing properties but when such healing is applied to one such as I…the effects are reversed.” With this Tom might as well have admitted to Harry that he was undead. 

Harry did not back away, instead he made sure that his necklace was well covered by the cloths and collar of his outfit, and allowed himself to be encircled by Tom’s body, which was what Tom had wanted of him. 

“What do you want, Tom?” Harry asked in the circling embrace.

Harry did not say so with words but Tom knew he was offering to fulfill Tom’s wishes. 

“I want to see you.” Tom said, and he followed the scent of blood, tracing his hands over Harry’s palm and his lip, touching the dried blood he found. “I want to go to Little Hangleton to drive my stepmother and the traitors out. To see their terror when I take my revenge.” 

“I’ll fix you.” Harry said, and it was a promise. “I have a plan.”

“A plan? Is it something reckless?”

“Why would you think that?” Harry said, knowing his tone was falsely innocent.

“It’s you after all.” Tom replied. 

“Uh, hello. Did you have breakfast?” Interrupted a male voice. 

The question was addressed to both of them. 

—

There were sitting around the small dining table in the kitchen. 

Tom and Harry sat together on one side while Ron and Hermione were on the other. Ron and Hermione introduced themselves first while Harry ate breakfast because the three other people in the room had practically strong armed him into it. 

He dug in with relish because the cooking was delicious and he was hungry and had only regained his appetite after finding Tom. But he felt incredibly rude that eggs were in his mouth while Ron and Hermione spoke but Hermione insisted it was fine in a tone that suggested her not taking issue was entirely her own viewpoint that had not been influenced by Tom. Harry could recognize that, and that it was Ron’s opinion he really did want Harry to eat and did not mind, but Ron was also scared of Tom. 

“Did he behave himself?” Harry asked after a few bites. He looked to Tom. 

“Yes.” Ron said, a nervous lie.

“No.” Hermione said, an adamant truth. 

They had spoken at the same time. Husband and wife looked at each other. 

“No.” Ron said.

“Yes.” Hermione said simultaneously. 

Tom smirked. It was funny to listen to. If only he could see their interactions. If he could see Harry, that was what mattered most. 

Harry ran a hand through his unruly black hair. “Tom.” He sighed.

“Excuse me,” Hermione said. “Could he be Tom Riddle by chance?” 

“You’re the Riddle heir?” Ron gasped, looking at Tom. 

Tom gave a careless nod. 

Ron squinted at Harry, “Who are you then?” He asked. Harry looked like he was someone important too. 

“Harry Potter.” Harry said simply. 

It was Hermione’s turn to gape. “You’re _Sir_ Potter.” She said. “You’re a knight!”

Harry didn’t deny it. 

“Why are you two in our little cottage?” Ron asked in disbelief. 

Harry wondered how much of the situation he could or should tell them. He did not want to involve these two blameless civilians, but they had already been dragged in, thanks to having had to host Tom. 

He was pondering this when Nagini slunk into the kitchen.

Harry’s hand went to his sword, out of surprise at her sheer size. “Why is there a large snake in the house?” He asked. 

Said snake hissed in distress and immediately tried to hide behind Tom, who was right next to Harry. 

“I wonder that myself.” Ron said morosely. 

“Put that away Harry - you’re scaring Nagini.” Tom said. The rest of his words were hisses. 

Harry sheathed it away the moment Tom told him to. His hand dropped away but he watched warily. 

“Oh, so that’s her name.” Ron said. 

“That’s good to know.” Hermione said. “Nagini is the one who carried Mr. Riddle here.”

“Oh.” Harry said. His wariness disappeared and he thanked Nagini, who only dared to crawl closer to Harry after Tom had hissed something.

“Her role was vital.” Hermione said. “When she brought him here he was in very bad shape. His pulse was weak and he had lost alot of blood, we don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t — ”

“You are far too talkative, Ms. Granger.” Tom said, his voice soft and deadly. Harry didn’t need to know how weak and injured he had been. 

“She’s only trying to tell Harry about the situation.” Ron said.

“Well the situation is different now and I am still here!” Tom growled. Did Mr. Weasley really think he could be on a first-name basis with Harry already?

Hermione became silent. She had looked at Harry and noticed the sorrow he could not quite mask. She had only wanted to inform him of what had happened but could see now that it would be better he not hear. 

“It was bad! I know even more about it because I had to bandage your bloody wounds!” Ron raised his voice too, the two clearly showcasing “how to escalate a situation”. He stood up. 

_“I’ll show you bloody wounds!”_ Tom hissed, also standing. 

“You know what? I didn’t even get that, but I’m sure he just threatened to kill me!” Ron shouted. “Harry, tell him to stop.” He said in the tone of someone asking a dog’s owner to check their dog’s leash. 

_“How dare you command him!”_

“You must be great at parties, a real conversational - ”

“Shut up. The both of you.” Hermione said sternly. “It’s upsetting Harry.” 

Ron and Tom both became silent. Tom tried not to get annoyed she had referred to Harry by his first name too, and failed.

“Thank you, Hermione.” Harry said. “I am sorry for any trouble you or Ron encountered because of Tom.” 

Ron sat down. He nodded, pleased to have heard an apology.

Tom sat down as well, crossing his arms. 

Harry looked to Ron and Hermione. “The situation is this, Lady Cecelia attempted to take control of Riddle Manor and its related lands following… ” Harry suddenly paused, trying to consider how to phrase - 

“Following my father’s death.” Tom said, toying with his locket.

“She tried to have Tom killed.” Harry said. “Currently, Little Hangleton is a combat zone of Dark creatures, and the only one who can repair the situation is sitting next to me.” 

“What?” Ron gawked. Hermione covered her mouth with a hand. 

“He’s the only one? Is it because he’d scare them away?” Ron guessed.

Harry winced. Ron did not know how accurate his statement actually was. 

“I’d like to apologize again and to thank you for having cared for him.” Harry said. “For I have a request to make.”

Hermione looked ready to take mental notes.

“Go ahead.” Ron shrugged. The snake was already in the house. 

“I want Tom and I to stay in your cottage until it is sunset.” Harry said. 

Tom tilted his head curiously. “Why the delay, Harry?”

“You know why.” Harry said. “Some things can only be done at night.”

“Oh?” Tom purred, leaning into Harry’s space. “Please enlighten me on those things.”

Ron rolled his eyes. He and Hermione we supposed to be the newlyweds here. What things? Could be done in the daytime too, he’s tried it. 

He curled his arm around Hermione, who squeaked. 

“Um, you must be tried from your travel to get here.” Hermione said to Harry. “There’s a place you can rest, the guest - ” She paused, remembering that Tom was already using the guest bedroom.

But Tom had already stood up, pulling Harry’s hand. “Yes, the guest room.” He said, “I can show you the way.” Nagini slithered ahead, hissing softly. 

Harry sighed, not resisting. 

Ron gave a relieved exhale when he heard the door to the room close.

“Harry doesn’t seem like a bad bloke.” He said, hugging his wife. “But that ax murderer of his on the other hand…” Ron frowned, trying to think of the implications. Harry was a knight and had complimented their cooking and knew when to apologize so he seemed okay, but Tom spooked Ron. But if the monster was scary, what of the monster’s master? 

Hermione sighed. “Did you really have to get into a shouting match with him, Ron?”

“He started it.” 

—

“That was petty, Tom.” Harry said. We’re his guests. Make better decisions for once.”

“You’re the good decision that’s made up for everything else.” Tom said, full of conviction. “And though you questioning my actions, you make interesting choices as well.” 

“Such as?” Harry asked, sitting on the bed. 

“You are with me.” Tom said, going for the bed too.

“I am.” Harry replied, helping Tom onto the mattress. 

“I mean you are a reckless person by nature, Harry. I want you to keep in mind that there’s consequences to one’s actions.” Tom said, curling by Harry’s side. 

“I don’t need to hear that from you, Riddle.” Harry said, touching Tom’s cheek. His other hand clasped Tom’s. 

Tom laughed and felt his tension disperse. He squeezed gently and his eyes grew heavy. He felt warm and safe. 

By his side Harry fell asleep and soon Tom would follow him. 

—

Eleven-year-old Harry Potter was in Grimmauld Place, back from the first of what would become many trips to Riddle Manor. 

He ate dinner and took a break in the library, grabbing an ancient looking tomb that had caught his eye. He flipped through the pages until something took his notice like the book had.

> _It cannot be said the Vampire is a living being, for he is an unholy creature that seeks fresh blood the color of his eyes. He is the King of Monsters, but there is no being more cowardly than the Damned of the Damned for once the first victim is drained to death, the Nosferatu's shattering soul will know no rest if he reaches his. As such, he fears the end, and will continue to harvest lives with his sharp teeth, for blood is the only way to maintain his immortality - which is that of an Ouroboros, at once self-destroying and self-preserving._

After his break Harry walked into the living room, which already had a blackboard set up. Remus stood while Harry sat down. His notes and writing instruments were already prepared for him and he listened as his professor gave a lecture on werewolves.

Though Harry was usually a present student, during this lesson he had trouble retaining any information or taking it in at all for the book’s passage continued to swim in his mind. 

Later, at night, Harry would wake up and spy on Remus talking with Sirius in Sirius’ bedroom. 

Remus was handing in a resignation letter, and seeing that Harry’s heart hurt for he wished he had been able to pay attention if that had been his last lesson. 

But to Harry’s surprise and Remus’, Sirius took the letter but immediately and conclusively ripped it to shreds. 

The pieces fell dramatically in a wide radius for Sirius had spread his hands, scattering the fragments. He would obviously not be the one to pick the mess up, for he was bedridden. 

The air became tense and the two men stared at each other. 

Harry knew he should be asleep but he was prepared to step in and break the argument if he needed to. 

But he would not have to intervene.

Remus sighed and said something soft Harry could not hear and Sirius said something back he could not catch either. 

“You can’t leave.” Sirius said. 

“You can’t leave.” Remus said, speaking the same words. 

Sirius tangled his fingers into Remus’ hair and Harry left them alone so he missed the rest of their conversation, where they spoke of a silver sword.


	24. Chapter 24

In another story… 

There were three sisters known as the Gorgons.

The two called Stheno and Euryale were immortal, but the one called Medusa was not.

Her dreadful visage and her hair made of venomous snakes could turn those who looked at her into stone. 

Thus it was practically a death sentence when King Polydectes demanded that Perseus slay Medusa.

But Perseus had the gods on his side and was equipped with a shield from Athena, a sword from Hephaestus, sandals from Hermes, and a helmet from Hades.

He traveled with the winged sandals and upon finding his target, aimed with his crystal sword by the reflection of his polished shield - not looking directly, lest he turn to stone.

After he successfully decapitated serpent-haired Medusa he sneaked past the two immortal Gorgons.

Cry and mourn as they may, the two surviving sisters could not find their sister’s killer for the helm given to Perseus by the Lord of the Dead rendered him invisible. 

…but this is not that story.

—

Harry woke up at noon, feeling refreshed from the journey he had taken to get here. Tom’s arms were wrapped around his body and it was a slow process, persuading Tom to release him, but he eventually did. 

Tom muttered his name in distress but Harry assured Tom he would not leave this cottage without him. 

Harry had gone through so much trouble to find him after all. 

Harry picked up his glasses from an adjacent desk, knowing that Tom had been the one to remove and place them there.

“Rest,” Harry said, appreciating how Tom looked relaxed in sleep. But his mind moved to how Lord Voldemort looked in sleep. Voldemort hadn’t looked peaceful but impatient. Harry halted his thoughts.

He looked at Tom a moment longer before he left the room. 

He went into the kitchen, where he found Ron making a several sandwiches. Nagini was curled around a table leg, expectantly looking toward Ron, who tossed her a somewhat warm, raw piece of chicken wing. 

“You can take as many as you like once I’m done.” Ron said, gesturing at the partially made sandwiches he had. He mentioned he made many at once out of habit. He also said there was heated water Harry could use for a bath. Hermione was reading in a quiet part of the cottage, in one of her researching moods, and Ron asked that she not be disturbed. 

Harry nodded and thanked him before turning to head for the water. Nagini followed him and it had taken Harry effort to lock her out for he had wanted to clean up in peace. 

Nagini had slithered away disappointedly. She would not be able to see for herself if Harry was like what Tom had said after all. 

When Harry returned to the kitchen he ended up eavesdropping as Ron talked while eating and Hermione listened while having a sandwich herself.

“I think Harry looks better after sleeping.” Ron said. “It’s a surprise he could sleep with Snow White in there though.” 

Harry could barely hold back a snort for Snow White surely referred to Tom.

“I could hardly sleep last night.” Ron said. “And I only did because you were with me, Hermione.”

Hermione had finished her sandwich and was steepling her fingers together on the table. “Well, Ron, I think Harry rested well not in spite of Riddle but because of him.”

Ron made a confused sound. 

“I mean I managed to sleep because of you being there, and I think it is the same between them.” Hermione said.

Ron struggled with the last bite of his sandwich and Hermione moved over to him, patting his back and moving her hand in soothing circles until he recovered. 

Harry entered the kitchen like he had just got there instead of listening in for the moments he had. 

Ron pointed out the completed sandwiches and excused himself as he had chores to do. 

Harry accepted the explanation. Perhaps Ron was embarrassed that he had gossiped about their guests with his spouse. 

Hermione apologized too and said she would have to return to her reading. But to make it clear they were not avoiding him she mentioned where she could be found if Harry needed to find her. 

Harry thanked them again for their hospitality.

After eating two sandwiches, Harry went to the living room, where he found Ron at the task of putting away the Yule Tree and related decorations and ornaments. There was a warm fire going. 

“I’ll help.” Harry said.

“You don’t have to,” Ron protested. “You’re a guest here, Harry.”

“It’s fine.” Harry said. “It’ll give me something to do and it’ll just be a little help in return for everything.”

“Okay.” Ron said. “I meant to take things down the day after but things happened so I’m doing it now.”

Harry understood that things meant Tom. 

Harry stood by the tree, about to get an ornament when Nagini entered the room. 

Ron sighed. “Bloody snake likes coiling under the tree so she might get upset once I take it down.”

Nagini did indeed wrap herself around the base of the tree and Ron worked unperturbed though he was standing with a huge snake right by his feet. 

Harry worked too, and listened as Ron spoke to fill the silence. 

“Maybe the tree reminds her of how she usually is in the wild.” Ron said. “They can hide in a spot and lie still in wait for hours for prey to run by.” He added, sounding like he was repeating something someone else had told him. “When one does, that’s when they strike. I wonder why critters would even go outside then.”

“Maybe because a meal is needed every day.” Harry said, carefully depositing a round ornament. 

“Oh, that’s true.” Ron flushed. 

“Um, I mean rodents need to eat every day so they have to go out and forage for grains and that’s where a snake would be because they need food too.” Harry had not meant to be sarcastic but had wanted to add to the conversation. “It’s a cycle that repeats every day. There’s life and there’s death.”

“Right,” Ron said, recognizing that Harry was not mocking him. “It’s tough out there for wild things.”

He made an admonishing noise at Nagini upon recognizing she was eyeing a wooden bird ornament. She had already found out earlier it wasn’t a real bird and he hoped her memory wasn’t so short that she would try to attack it again. 

“A wild creature would have it easy if they found a reliable source of food and secure shelter.” Ron said. He stared at Nagini meaningfully. “But feed it once and it’ll come back. You would have to be responsible for a tamed thing.” 

Harry wondered if Ron was really talking about Nagini. He helpfully held a box that Ron deposited a string of ornaments into. 

Ron put his hands on his hips and shook his head. The tree was the only thing left but Nagini didn’t look like she’d leave yet. 

“I’ll get it later.” Ron said. 

He took some decoration filled boxes and Harry took the others. 

They went to the storage area. 

—

Tom reached his arm across a section of the bed he was in and frowned in his sleep when he realized he could not find the person he sought. 

He had not slipped off the gold ring on his hand for he needed it to help his healing. He gave a soft cry and a drop of red smeared the ring’s black stone. 

He wore his locket too, and if he were awake he’d notice it had turned unusually heavy again. 

A woman’s singing voice could be heard.

_“Black is the color of my true love's hair. His face is like some rosy fair…”_

Soothed by the lullaby, Tom slept on. 

—

On the way back from the storage area, Harry stopped at the office room where he knew Hermione was, while Ron walked on to get the decorations in the back. 

Harry knocked before entering and Hermione acknowledged him verbally so he stepped inside. 

Harry had a feeling Hermione was usually tidier but there were unbalanced stacks of books on the desk and hasty scribbles on sheets and sheets of parchment. 

She looked up from her book and although he had given her notice she seemed nervous to see him. 

“An interesting read?” Harry asked. 

“Oh, um, I’m just reading some old fairy tales.” She said. “Very old…going back a thousand years.”

“You have a romantic streak among the rationality then?” Harry smiled, trying to lighten the mood. 

Hermione nodded. She was a logical and practical person, but the magic of such tales were appealing too. “I enjoy scientific texts but fairy tales have their own merits as well, though for different reasons.” Growing up, her parents had read both to her.

Hermione put down the book so there was no physical barrier blocking her from Harry’s sight. 

“I’ve heard tales.” Hermione said, “That are not old but ongoing.”

Harry stilled. “What are the details of these tales may I ask?”

“Once upon a time, a woman wished to have a child with the man she loved, that would have his porcelain skin as white as snow, his rosy cheeks red as blood, and his dark hair black as ebony. The boy was born beautiful, with skin like snow and hair like ebony…but the child was not born with red cheeks but red eyes.”

“Go on.” Harry said, waiting for the rest of the tale. He stabilized himself by putting his hands on the desk. He noted the archaic titles. 

“The woman died and her husband remarried. His new spouse feared the child and she…I’m not sure what she did because I would not know what goes on in a large manor myself, but it was likely sad…” 

“Not all fairy tales are happy ones.” Harry said.

“They often aren’t, especially the old ones.” Hermione said. “But I also know this, presently we make our own endings.” She said with conviction. “And in these tales there’s sometimes romance too, and in this case the knight loved not a princess but the monster.” 

Harry gave a fragile smile. “Thank you for the tale. I’ll leave you to your research now.” 

Hermione gathered her notes, nodding. 

He left. 

—

The Lady of the manor was trying to get Remus to defect.

He was a patient and tolerant man but he had his limits too. 

He was tired from fighting chilly wraiths and gigantic spiders, and it was like he had spent the night as werewolf for the exhaustion was comparable. The bloody full moon was in fact tonight so he needed to deal with this quickly. 

He did not care for any gold she had to offer, nor any silver.

Out of the corner of his eye he was warily watching the silver diadem decorated with blue sapphires, which was on a nearby table.

She did not seem to think it was a weapon but rather something she had planned to crown herself with following her plan of having Tom killed and wrestling the manor and its lands from him.

“He’s dead!” The Lady shouted of her stepson. “And that godson of yours is dead too if he went into the woods after him!”

Remus scowled. “Harry is not dead. And if Tom is dead, it wouldn’t last long.” 

“You knew!” She pointed an accusing finger. 

Yes, Remus had known but he had allowed Tom to stay near Harry’s side. Tom had often clashed with him and he would happily break through any precautions Remus tried to take to give Harry some measure of safety from him, but in the end Remus had given in. He had accepted that Tom was ironically a part of keeping Harry safe, and he would let Tom protect him. 

“Of course, you’re a must be a freak too and that’s why you did nothing!” She shrieked.

The accusation stunned him though she did not know enough to say he was a werewolf. Remus was not in the best shape, too drained after all. He had paid more attention to the silver diadem on the desk than how the Lady had reached for a bag of sleeping powder. It was thrown into his face and inhaling it, he dropped like a stone. The last thing he saw was her grabbing the diadem and fleeing. 

—

Tom woke up as an early dinner was concluding. 

Harry was back in the room, the door closed behind him. He had cooked with Ron and it during the meal there was a strange tension in the air as Hermione walked in when the food was ready, having done her research the entire time.

Seeing Harry in the room, Tom was about to complain that Harry had not been with him when he woke but Harry had sat down the bed next to him. 

Harry was back. He was here with Tom. They were on the same level but Tom was in the mood for worship. He mentioned it out loud. 

“What did I say about pedestals?” Harry said. “I am only human, and I have flaws.”

“I don’t see any.” Tom said, making light of his present predicament. 

Harry sighed. “For one I am selfish. It would have saved lots of people grief if I had ended you long before now, but I wanted you.” 

Tom quivered. Those words again. 

“The night approaches - it’s the the favorite time of a Vampire, isn’t it Lord Voldemort?” Harry asked. 

Tom could not see but he could hear the sound of a small silver necklace being set down on a wooden table. 

—

Lady Cecelia consulted her mirror.

She already had Remus locked away. She would deal with him and the soldiers on Tom’s side in the morning. But the more pressing issue was the coming nighttime. The creatures would reappear then.

She had her soldiers freed from the dungeons for she needed them to fight the dark army but there had to be some way to rid of them. The mirror had informed her they were present because Tom wasn’t, but he was dead and she wanted him to stay that way. 

“Isn’t there anything that can be done to stop their appearances?”

“It will be solved soon enough.” The mirror promised. 

—

Ron and Hermione had been eavesdropping. They didn’t mean to but Harry had left his sheathed sword behind and they had intended to return it to him.

“Did he say vampire?” Ron said in shocked disbelief. “And what’s a Lord Voivode More?”

“Nosferatu.” Hermione said, sounding like a hypothesis of her had just gotten confirmed. 

Ron turned his head to face her. 

“I wanted to tell you at dinner.” Hermione said. 

Ron recalled the dinner. Hermione had given him a look and Ron couldn’t comprehend it, it wasn’t a come hither look but Hermione had wanted to be alone with Ron for some reason, maybe to tell him something. But Ron hadn't wanted to leave Harry alone while they left him, as it would be rude.

“Oh.” Ron said, understanding the reason for the tension earlier. 

Neither would notice when the sword they were going to return disappeared from the table they had set it down on. 

—

“I’ve known what you were for awhile now.” Harry said.

“Of course.” Tom said, for Harry must have had some suspicions, and Tom had made it easy for it to pile up. He had not disguised himself. He told Harry things. He walked in the sun with him. He had let Harry try to push him into a barrier protected bedroom. But there were still perhaps somethings that Harry did not know of. “I should share a secret too.” Tom said. 

Tom held his hands over his gold locket, for the desire to touch Harry was strong, but he did not want to crowd him now. 

“I’ve wanted your blood for a long time now.” Tom said in whispers, “Ever since we met. After I had cut your forehead, I wondered if your blood would tasted as good as it smelled. I wanted to kill you then and there, drink your blood down to the very last drop. I think I’ve even dreamed of having it. You know I am a vampire. You know I want your blood.” Tom said. “What will you do about this?”

Tom heard Harry slide off the bed and pick up his unsheathed weapon. 

Harry held his silver blade. It was night and the full moon was out. 

“Will you cut off my head? Stab your silver sword through my skull?” Tom asked, and the last sentence was said in a distressed hiss. 

“No.” Harry said, slicing his own throat. 

—

“I have said that there will be a resolution as long as the two are together.” The mirror said. 

“He is holding his corpse then?” the Lady asked. 

“You want the beasts of the night gone. Well, they will be gone once he is back. And the knight will bring him back.” 

The Lady of the manor screamed. “No, no! You told me - ”

—

Ron and Hermione both panicked and tried to get the door open at the same time but tripped over each other as Nagini snaked around their legs. They landed in a immobilized pile.

Inside the guest room, its two occupants continued in their own world. 

The scent of Harry’s blood became the focal point of Tom’s existence and all his remaining senses charged toward it. The monster in the coffin stirred. Tom wanted so much and so badly but he also felt fury and grief. He had been brought literally to his knees and he was holding Harry. 

The sword had disappeared. 

“You want my blood, right? Don’t let your dreams remain dreams, Tom.” Harry managed to say, even in his condition. 

Tom bit his own lip in frustration, here Harry was, bleeding and having injured himself, and he could still say such things.

Harry’s hand caught the red liquid dripping down Tom’s cheeks from his hallow eyes. 

“What if I go to far? What if I killed you?” Tom whispered helplessly. 

“I trust you.” Harry said. Tom had heard those words before. 

—

“You told me he’s dead!” The Lady of the manor shouted at her golden mirror.

“Yes I did.” The mirror agreed. “For Lord Voldemort is asleep like the dead, but waiting to truly live!” 

—

Harry’s blood even tasted better than it had in the dream. 

Tom wondered if he had been run through. Perhaps he was lying in a pool of his own blood and hallucinating, but each sip he took felt real. Addictive, delicious. 

He kept drinking. 

His regenerated red eyes opened.


	25. Chapter 25

Harry did not know the whole of what his blood would do to Tom.

He had tried to find the missing information through his own research and through asking Professor Lupin.

He had requested a lecture on vampires.

Harry did not say they were speaking of Tom, but Remus had not been a fool. 

“They are frozen, unchanging beings but he has changed and grown up with me.” Harry said.

“They disappeared many centuries ago but if they were around now they would be the same as they were back then.” Remus said. “Vampires, through the theft of the blood and lives of others, can extend their existence. But each time they kill for blood, their soul is splintered. It is a contradiction because the vampire harms himself, but lays the foundation for his immortality.” 

Harry had already known as much from the book he had read. 

“You are wondering what would happen if a vampire were to take blood and life, or even only blood?” Remus said. “Would he wholly become the vampire at last?”

Harry listened intently.

“In truth I do not know.” Remus said. “But how someone is, his nature cannot be changed.” He said sadly. 

“It doesn’t matter what he is.” Harry said. “I will stay with him.” 

—

Tom had already tasted death, a long time ago. It had put him to sleep. A vampire slept in his coffin, not yet truly awake, but the possibility was there. When he did wake the world would know ceaseless bloodshed. He had been dormant but was now in the process of being truly awoken by blood. Harry Potter’s. For Tom, Harry went about things like this, putting forth his whole heart, his whole self.

Tom was tasting life, draining it. Though Tom was the one who had offered his neck first, Harry had offered his own neck in response. It was everything to him, this blood being given freely and willingly like Harry’s love. It was better than anything Tom had ever stolen. 

But there was still something he could take.

Voldemort was close to fully awakening. His deal with Harry had consisted of two parts and only one was being fulfilled. 

_Kill him._ Lord Voldemort demanded. 

He thought Harry a foolish martyr that should be taught a lesson. For Voldemort was a greedy, self-interested bastard who did not understand self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice meant you sacrificed yourself, and the loss of the self effectively meant death! To have no self is to be dead. Why sacrifice yourself when you can sacrifice others for power and immortality? He did not know that the power of a true sacrifice came from someone who offered their own blood and their own life, and not another person’s. Tom knew that the ignorant creature, such a rapacious, ravenous thing was himself. 

He drank more and more even as he knew the person below him was growing weaker and weaker. A monster could not help himself. 

Harry felt Tom growing true fangs. 

“Stop.” Harry said. His mother’s necklace would not save him now like the day it had in the library. He had taken it off. 

There was a dangerous silence. 

But then Tom stopped, leaving an open mouth kiss to Harry’s neck.

“I did agree to giving you my life but I didn’t say when or how.” Harry whispered. 

Voldemort, awake in the coffin of Tom’s soul, growled in outrage. 

“How tricky.” Tom said with relief. He allowed himself to look at Harry with his recovered serpentine red eyes. 

Harry was disheveled, his shirt undone and his neck exposed, decorated by his own blood. A delicious sight. Tom decided being attacked and blinded was worth this being the first thing he saw with his returned eyes.

“Welcome…back.” Harry said, the first part to Voldemort and the whole phrase for Tom. It did not really matter, for Tom was both. “Now open your mouth.”

Tom obeyed, not resisting when Harry stuck a finger into his mouth, Harry’s expression thoughtful as he traced Tom’s new teeth. 

Tom behaved but licked the finger when Harry pulled it out. 

Tom gave a worshipful description of the flavor of Harry’s blood, and Harry allowed him to get away with it. 

Harry tried to stand and failed. 

Tom caught him, alarmed at how he swayed. 

The door opened. 

“He’s lost too much blood.” Hermione said. 

“You drank a smidge too much.” Ron added. 

Husband and wife were fearful when they noticed Tom’s very much healed and red serpentine eyes glare at them. 

At the door, Nagini hissed at Tom. 

Harry asked the newlyweds to please leave and close the door. 

They did. 

Tom had drank too much, true. But the damning truth was he wanted more. Voldemort wanted more. 

Desperately he bit himself with his new teeth, swallowing his own blood, like it was a satisfactory solution for Lord Voldemort. There was still food left, it was too early for the snake to be already biting itself.

Harry noticed Tom’s actions. “Don’t hurt yourself!” He said, distressed, put stopping Tom was an impossibility in his current state. 

“I’m sorry, Harry.” Tom murmured. “But I want to drink more of yours and this is how I am trying to stop myself.” He swallowed. “It’s not even working well for my having own blood is not something I desire much.” 

“Your own blood?” Harry echoed, and there was an expression on his face Tom recognized as an imprudent one. 

He drew Tom in for a kiss and before their lips met Harry asked a question. “Would it change me?” 

Tom shook his head, “Not permanently but it could be strange - ” 

Harry swallowed the rest of his words with a kiss. Tom remembered their shared dream. He worked on reclaiming Harry’s lips from himself, for himself. 

When Harry’s mouth opened, Tom pushed his bitten tongue in, leaving his blood on Harry’s. Harry moaned at this new and welcome experience, and clutched at Tom’s head as his strength returned with what Tom gave him. 

They pulled apart, the both of them breathless. 

In Tom’s mind, Voldemort had stopped calling for Harry’s death. Voldemort had also stopped wanting to drink more of Harry’s blood, at least at this moment because of the presence of his own blood. But he was even more desirous, his possessive feelings stronger. Voldemort not really disappointed, not when Harry had been claimed through their exchange of substance, of soul. Voldemort was amused. Such a tactic really was quite devious. 

Harry blinked. He could hear Nagini hiss on the other side of the door. 

She was speaking unhappily and warning Ron and Hermione that they both nearly got killed. She said she was going to the fireplace in the living room now and she hoped Ron and Hermione would not get themselves killed in the meantime without her around. 

_“I can underssstand what ssshe’s sssaying?”_ Harry hissed. 

_“Yessss.”_ Tom answered. _“You can ssspeak it too.”_

 _“Hmm, I did regret that thosse lesssonsss couldn’t continue.”_ Harry said, recalling how Tom had been banned by Remus from teaching Harry the language of snakes. A strange expression crossed his face, then he searched around until he found his cloak. 

Harry reached into a pocket and pulled out an old diary. 

_“Thanksss for telling me to use it by the way.”_ Harry said, referring to how Voldemort had told him to use the diary to find him. 

Tom stared. A wave of dread washed over him.

But he doesn’t stop Harry from opening his diary. 

_“I can read it…”_ Harry said, and his voice was mournful for Tom. 

Harry hissed an entry out loud. 

It was about a brutal murder Tom had committed. 

Tom had not bothered to couch things in ambiguous language when it was written in a script only he could understand. Or at least he once had been the only one able to read it. It was not so now. 

There were consequences to one’s actions. 

And Tom had given Harry his blood and therefore the ability to read his diary. A record of his crimes, his murders, the people he’s killed. He was sick, giving his diary to an eleven year old and letting Harry carry his sins for years when Harry had nothing to do with it. And now Harry was tainted by Tom’s blood. The serpent had given and the knowledge was open to Harry. 

Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Tom would allow Harry the right to be all three. 

Harry read more entries, hissing all the while and without inflection. 

Tom listened as Harry detailed his atrocities. 

Tom trembled and cried crimson tears. It was like he was catching up to the crying he had not done as a child. He had not felt much at all during those times. 

Harry continued and it wasn’t a cruel act but a merciful one. 

Tom’s diary pages could not turn pristine like he had never committed and wrote down his bloody deeds but to be faced with them was a catharsis. 

He felt like his soul was being mended, and past wounds that had never healed properly because he had repressed and ignored them were now being addressed and patched by Harry. 

Merope Gaunt’s ghost watched, for red had spilled on the black stone during all the crying. She went unnoticed by Tom and Harry as she appeared for the third and last time. She could fade and rest, knowing that her son was reunited with his love. 

Harry reached the end at some point but the sobs still wrecked Tom’s body so Harry put down the diary and embraced him.

“Why?” Tom whispered. “I’m evil. I let you carry it for years!”

“Shh. You’re safe now.” Harry said, and Tom realized that Harry meant that Tom was now safe from the people who had tried to kill him. 

With the diary now read, Tom had few secrets from Harry. 

But he still had some. 

~~

Harry was not the first person Tom had offered blood to though Harry was the one who had accepted. 

During the night of the the full moon before the June Sirius Black had passed away, Tom had visited the man. 

Tom had thought of offering the blood because Harry’s godfather not dying meant Harry not being sad, so Tom had sneaked into Sirius’ room with this intention in mind. 

“Ah, so you are Harry’s friend that I have been hearing about.” Sirius said, and his tone had suggested it wasn’t all good things that he had heard. 

Tom stated his intention bluntly and even told Sirius what he was. 

Sirius shook his head. “Sorry kid, but I’m in the acceptance stage now. You missed bargaining. I'm past the denial and anger stage too.” Sirius’ eyes were calm. “Death is just a part of things.”

“Death sucks.” Tom said, for he had seen it happen to other people, with him being the cause. “Reconsider.” He said. 

“Using blood to extend my life is cheating.” Sirius said. “And I’m not fond of the getting-my-soul-eternally-damned part.”

“It won’t change you. It’ll just extend your life for awhile.” Tom protested. Of course there were other side-effects but…

“Uh-huh.” Sirius said. “And if it runs out and I have to drink more? I’ve already had some pretty shitty experiences with addiction.” He did not seem to have qualms about swearing or breaching such a subject with a thirteen-year old. Of course said thirteen-year-old was also a vampire that was offering him life-extending blood. “I’d rather pass on.” He said. “Just help take care of Harry.” Sirius added, also shamelessly asking this of a thirteen-year old. 

“I will.” Tom said, “But I need your help”. He brought out the things related to his other goal of the night, a back-up plan really. 

He handed Sirius the forged marriage documents and a quill. “Please put your signature on it and Lupin’s.” He said, explaining his scheme. 

Sirius read and did as Tom requested, failing to hide his laughter. 

“Damn. I wish I could see his expression when he finds out.” Sirius said. His smile faltered. 

Tom wondered if he would reconsider Tom’s offer. 

“I don’t need your blood.” Sirius repeated, handing the signed documents to Tom. “But don’t hurt my godson again, or Remus.”

Tom agreed, wisely not informing Sirius that the quill he had signed the papers with was the very same quill Tom had cut his godson with. 

“I did that and now I have a question for you.” Sirius said. “Just how did you get in here? I never invited you.”

“You didn’t and the werewolf didn’t, so obviously Harry did.” Tom said. 

Sirius startled at Tom causally divulging that he knew what Remus was. 

“You,” Sirius growled, readying to emerge from his sheets like he had the strength and could even be an opponent of Tom.

“I won’t tell anyone provided you don’t tell anyone what I am.” Tom said. 

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“That’s right, Mr. Black.”

Sirius scowled and Tom had the feeling he would have used the last of his life right then if he meant he could smite Tom where he stood. 

“How do invitations work?” Sirius asked.

“You may own the place.” Tom said. “But through the owner feeling that the people who live in the home are familial, they too are all eligible to invite me in. Are you upset Harry put everyone in danger?”

“No.” Sirius said, “Remus can handle himself and I’m already dying.”

“Not only family, but feelings can extend to friends.” Tom continued, freely giving Sirius information. “Say friends come in from afar to visit you. They enter your home and you something like “welcome, your home is my home”. As long as they are inside, they would have the right to invite me in too.”

Sirius was listening attentively. 

“Suppose I catch them when they leave and I tell them to get back into the house and invite me in? They would if I asked nicely.” Tom said. “And if they refuse I’d simply threaten to kill them.” He this said in the voice of someone who had made such threats before. “Would they just allow me to take their life or would they invite me in to save their own skin? All it would take is one traitor. It’s not that hard for me to get inside a house thought to be safe, so don’t fret too much about me being able to enter here. I’d get inside sooner or later so don’t think you can hide Harry from me.”

Each sentence agitated Sirius more and more. There was actually an angry red pallor to his otherwise pale cheeks by the end. Tom was having such fun he forgot he was suppose to be nice to his crush’s godfather.

“You miserable brat.” Sirius growled. “I swear you’ve taken years off my life.” 

“Wow, your balance is in the negative then, isn’t it?”

“Get the fuck out of my house.”

“But I’ve already been invited inside.” Tom said. “Is it terrible, not being able to feel safe in your own home?” Tom grinned. 

Tom had grabbed his quill and documents, fleeing when Sirius pulled out a silver dagger. 

~~

Tom thinking of the documents he had fled with gave him an idea. 

He took off his black-stoned, golden ring and offered it to Harry. 

“I don’t expect you to reply immediately.” Tom said. “But please accept my ring for now and give me your answer later.” There was no one else Tom would ever propose to, except Harry Potter, who had read his diary and seen the darkest parts of him. 

Harry silently accepted the ring, wearing it on his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me trying to write: Tom pls be nice to Sirius
> 
> Tom: *Is a little shit*


	26. Chapter 26

Since Ron and Hermione had been closed out of their own guest room again, they listened outside. Nagini had slithered off to curl up by the fireplace after she did what sounded like lecturing. 

Eavesdropping didn’t give them much. All they heard was hissing and crying. They were had been worried by the hissing but it had sounded like Harry and not Tom. The cries sounded had like that of a boy’s. 

They couldn’t understand anything until they heard something that sounded they heard a marriage proposal. 

Ron and Hermione both squealed in delight and clasped their hands together so that their marriage bands aligned. 

Harry overheard them as he opened the door. 

“We must get back to Little Hangleton.” Harry said. He had tarried by reading the diary but it had been necessarily to unburden Tom. 

“What did he do to you?” Ron asked Harry, wonderingly. Harry looked so refreshed and energized. But Ron remembered how Harry had swayed from blood loss. 

Tom smiled. Ron was fortunate he was in a good mood. 

“Ronald.” Hermione said, nudging Ron, but really she had been wondering the same. She was just polite not to say it. 

“We want to help you.” Ron said to Harry. 

Harry thought about if he should really allow Ron and Hermione to follow them. 

“What is your motive?” Tom asked. 

“What motive?” Ron frowned. “Friends help each other.” 

Hermione watched Ron and Tom, and thought of the silverware in the cabinet. 

“We’re friends now?” Tom asked. 

“Not you, Harry.” Ron said. 

Nagini hissed curiously, watching them bicker. She was back from the living room.

Tom wanted to discuss with Harry. He started hissing.

“Okay, wow. Can we speak in a language everyone here can understand?” Ron said, ignoring that it would mean everyone but Nagini could understand. 

“I am telling her to bite you in your sleep.” Tom deadpanned. 

Hermione squeezed Ron’s hand.

“No he isn’t, Ron.” Harry said. “He’s thanking her for saving him and bringing him to trustworthy, helpful people that helped heal him.” 

“Why couldn’t he have just said it but not in hisses?” Ron asked. 

_“I want to ssay things only you sshould underssstand.”_ Tom said to Harry. _“I love you.”_

_“Nagini can understand too.”_ Harry said, but his heart was pounding happily. 

_“It’sss for her too.”_ Tom said.

Nagini gave a bashful hiss.

 _“I love you.”_ Harry said. He paused, realizing something. “Tom, that ssoundsss familiar. You told me it meant “Good night” when I sssaid it to you!” He had recalled the old lesson. 

_“Yess I did.”_ Tom hissed. Well, there went another secret. 

“I am being ignored.” Ron complained.

Hermione made a guess, telling Ron that Tom was saying words of love, judging by Harry’s blush, and the two of them did not need to understand. 

“Clever aren’t you?” Tom said, giving Hermione a murderous glare, for she was right. 

Ron stepped between Tom and a paralyzed Hermione. He turned to her and imitating Harry’s hiss, looked at Hermione and said _“I love you?”_

Harry laughed.

Tom was outraged. He didn’t want to admit that was a half-way decent imitation. It was incredibly offensive to even have that thought let alone acknowledging. That was it. He had strike, practically broad-casting the thought. 

Harry stopping laughing and caught Tom’s gaze. 

It was a wordless reprimand and Tom was caught. 

Not for the first time, Ron thought Harry could be a scary bloke when he wanted to be. Which should one be more wary of, the monster or the monster’s master? 

Harry broke his eye contact with Tom to turn toward Ron and Hermione. 

Harry started talking. Harry chatted with Hermione and Ron like they were old friends. He asked about how they met, their hobbies and favorite books, and congratulated them on their marriage. He got genuinely into it though he had started with the intention of teaching Tom a lesson. 

Tom pretended to be preoccupied with petting Nagini while the three of them ignored him. Yes, Tom’s hand was moving over her scales but Tom continued to stare at the back of Harry’s head while Harry looked at Ron or Hermione. Nagini noticed Tom’s distress but couldn’t really help him.

At first Ron had glanced at man and snake and Hermione had been nervous too but even with the presence of Riddle and Nagini soon they fell into a deep conversation with Harry. They were leisurely caught in their own world, like they weren’t suppose to be somewhere or that there were two other beings that were being excluded. 

Riddle may have noticed Ron or Hermione looking at him warily but he didn’t care to spare them a glance. He only had eyes for Harry. His look was a silent pleading one - Tom didn’t dare interrupt the trio but his was a gaze that was more begging than a command. Look at me. Look at me! Look at me, please! 

But Harry did not. 

The ease with which Ron and Hermione were getting along with Harry made Tom jealous and upset for he wasn’t the only one to befriend Harry easily. The three of them were like kindred souls that have found each other again, reunited in this lifetime.

Tom wanted all of Harry’s love. It distressed him for other to have even Harry’s platonic love. His deceased parents, Sirius. The living Remus Lupin, Ron and Hermione. Tom was so flustered. But they made Harry happy and Tom wanted Harry to be happy so…he wouldn’t hurt them. 

He could Harry’s voice over their mental link. 

_I’m glad you get it, Tom. Sharing is caring._

The trio exchanged glances between themselves until there was a natural lull in their talk. 

“Tom.” Harry said. It was understood. Tom’s punishment, being ignored, had ended. 

Tom was like a dead man brought back to life the moment Harry’s attention returned to him. 

_“Yessss?”_ Tom said at first but then fearing he had made a mistake corrected himself. “Yes?”

Harry answered in the language of snakes and it was as good as forgiveness. 

_“Let’sss go. Reclaim what’sss yourss.”_ Harry said, speaking of the manor and its lands. 

“He’s like a pet or something.” Ron said of Tom. 

“No, he isn’t!” Harry denied vehemently. 

“Monsters don’t make good pets.” Tom said. 

There was a beat.

“Of course, I am an exception.” Tom added. 

Harry did not take this well. He grabbed Tom by the locket around his neck. Witnessing this, Ron gave a horrified squawk but the shadows merely quivered with curiosity. 

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Harry said, tugging the necklace so that Tom was pulled toward him. “You are a _person_ and you have all the privileges and responsibilities of being one!” 

“Oh.” Tom said. A person? People did not generally view him as one. Oftentimes he didn’t even himself. But Harry said and believed this of him.

_I thought I was but a monster to be put down._

“I see.” Tom smiled and decided to do what he responsibly should. 

Tom turned to Ron and Hermione. He bowed. “Thank you for taking care of me and saving my life.”

“You’re welcome.” Ron and Hermione said, shocked. 

“You can really thank us by bringing us along, though.” Ron said.

“We want to help.” Hermione reiterated. 

Harry asked if they were fond of the silverware in the kitchen cabinet. 

Ron faltered, muttering something about how his mother would kill him if he lost it.

Hermione mentioned that she had already turned some silver teeth into proper silver bullets. She guiltily avoided Harry’s gaze. 

“Oh.” Harry said, not blaming her. 

They equipped themselves. Ron and Hermione with guns while Harry reequipped his sheathed blade and silver cross. 

Tom touched upon his powers, which had grown many times more powerful. Shadows flitted across the walls. If he wanted to, he knew he could level the entire place. 

Harry gave Tom a warning look. 

Nagini informed them that she wanted to join too. Only Harry and Tom understood but Harry explained to the Ron and Hermione.

“We’re going to teleport.” Tom said, and that was the only warning he would give. 

“Right.” Ron said, sounding like he had heard but at the same time did not understand. 

A complete circle would be needed. 

The positions ended up with Harry holding Tom’s hand while Tom touched Nagini’s head. Ron touched her tail with one hand and held Hermione’s hand with the other. Hermione held Harry’s other hand.

Tom inclined his body to stare at sight, and his necklace rattled dangerously. 

“If I can handle my wife holding your fiance’s hand you should be able to stand it too.” Ron glared. 

“Hmm.” Tom said, squeezing Harry’s hand, which had the ring on it. He was pleased that Ron had acknowledged Harry as being engaged to Tom. “We’re off then.” He said. 

They teleported.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Monsters don’t make good pets.” is a direct Tom Riddle quote from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, said to Hagrid about Aragog. I had to use it here because it reminded me of AxI.


	27. Chapter 27

The soldiers standing guard were already running on very frayed nerves. They aimed their weapons at any sound although they were in an area the Dark creatures had not gathered in as great a mass. Just knew all too well by now that if even if they didn’t see them, the monsters were out there. 

There was a loud crack in the direction of the woods that made the group jump. It was a matter of being hired by the Lady of the manor that they had to fulfill their obligation to check the source of the disturbance. They complained about her and how she had failed to keep the monsters away. In fact the moment she had claimed the deceased Lord Riddle’s house and lands, the nights had turned into ones of survival and battle. 

They drew lots and an unfortunate veteran had to checks. He grumbled and swore but he had more experience than the lot. Perhaps he would survive. 

He immediately regretted it once he reached the spot. 

By the light of the full moon he could see that there was a pool of blood and on it was a large serpent in the middle of swallowing a man’s leg whole. 

The snake did just that and the man turned to flee but it was already too late. 

“L-Lord Riddle.” The soldier said, as he spotted red eyes, as if giving the man his dead father’s title would appease his wrath. 

“You are referring to a dead man.” Tom said, and really he could be speaking of himself as well as his father. His tone made it clear the soldier would be one too and he did just that.

—

Tom stared at the pool of blood Nagini had consumed her meal on. He wanted to have a meal himself. He already had Harry’s blood but now that the substance was known to him, his greedy self longed for more. 

There was a hunger in his stomach and a thirst in this throat. More blood, more and more… Harry’s was exquisite but now any would do no matter the taste. The knowledge was open to him. Blood and the power it gave. There were consequences. Harry had made the choice to slay him or to feed him, and had done the latter. Tom did not want it to be the wrong one but the ache ate away at him. He knew he could make it go away by eating - drinking! But if he did that, the last of parts of him that counted as a person would disappear. Harry had said he was a person. But he was monster. At his base just an animal ruled by instinct. Tom knew that he would just keep going as Dumbledore had said, eating everything, swallowing the whole world - destroying and devouring, circling it until there was nothing left to consume but himself.

He tore off the bandages he no longer needed and watched as it soaked up the blood on the ground. 

Tom walked away and returned to Harry, who was waiting with the married couple. 

Just as Tom came back to their sights, there was the sound of a howl, which everyone heard. Tom and Harry made eye contact and they were thinking the same thing. Remus Lupin. It was a full moon night. 

“Go find him and take those two with you.” Tom said, for Ron and Hermione had guns loaded with silver bullets. “I will take care of the creatures and soldiers.” 

“Tom…” Harry said, clearly reluctant to let Tom go off alone.

“I’m much more powerful now.” Tom said assuringly. 

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Harry said. “How are you doing?”

“Wonderfully.” Tom said, though he was hungry. 

Harry had not been wholly assuaged but he needed to find Remus so he began to lead the search, and knowing he should not keep Ron and Hermione in the dark, informed them of who they were looking for. 

“The howl kind of already tipped us off.” Ron said, uneasy but already resolved to assist Harry. 

—

The Dark creatures either fled from Tom or looked at Tom expectantly. He slaughtered them.

But where were the human soldiers?

He found them soon enough, upon following a silk trail.

The lead bullets they used had not done enough to the giant spiders, which were now snacking on them.

Tom destroyed the spiders by sending them crashing into the surviving band of soldiers who had began shooting lead at him. 

He paused at a silk encased body that had been halfway drained, the soldier was barely still alive. 

_Drink, drink!_ Voldemort demanded, but while Tom considered, the soldier expired. 

He moved on. 

Nagini stayed behind to eat.

—

Harry found Remus holed up in the Lady’s section of the manor. He was slamming against the walls and hurting himself. There was nothing else. At least nothing until Harry, Ron and Hermione had entered. They had no bullets left for Ron had emptied them on on the giant spider he encountered and Hermione’s destroyed a cloaked wraith. 

Ron stood in front of Hermione while Harry stood in front of them both. 

The growls were terrible to hear and there was a moment of stillness before the werewolf leap. It was toward a window but the shadows in the room danced and bound him, claws, jaws and all, before removing the window carefully and depositing the werewolf safely onto the ground below. Still, Hermione and Ron volunteered to check up on him. They recognized the shadows as Tom’s work. 

Harry stayed behind. Remus’ destruction of the room had revealed an odd entrance to some secret room. He wanted to investigate. 

—

Tom could feel Harry’s relief over their connection. Remus Lupin was safe. Tom currently had him bound in shadows. 

Thing were going well but Tom wanted to drink!

However, if he did, it would be disastrous. 

He needed to go to an old familiar area, somewhere he could isolate himself. His garden or that other place. 

—

Harry entered the room and the first thing he noticed was the large, tall mirror that filled it. It was golden and claw footed. 

“Harry James Potter.” The mirror greeted.

Harry gripped his sword warily, stepping away so that his reflection was out of the mirror. 

“So you are the mirror that lied to the Lady about Tom’s death.” 

“I did not. I could not. The magic that makes me what I am stops me from doing so.” The mirror said. There were a lot of knowledge and truths and the mirror had long learned the art of saying what it did to get the outcomes it wanted. “He is a dead man and his true self has not yet lived.” 

“Why did you plan all this?” Harry asked, recognizing the mirror as the mastermind behind the Lady of the manor’s mechanizations. 

“I am very, very old.” The mirror said. “It’s an ancient phrase. The wording may change but the gist of it is this - be careful what you wish for. I did not. I wished for all of time and knowledge to be at my disposal. To be a powerful all-knowing immortal.” The mirror seemed to gleam malevolently. “It was granted at the cost of becoming a slave, cursed to be a possession that could only answer questions posed to it but not for itself. To help others get what they wanted, but not anything for itself - a mirror passed from owner to owner, for eternity. I’ve known many humans and I know this, no one is selfless. There is only selfishness. Everyone asked something of me, now what it is that you desire, Harry Potter?” 

“What do you desire?” Harry shot back. “You are avoiding my question.”

Harry recalled tales. The mirror reminded him of djinn that purposely granted wishes in the worst ways. Careful wording was needed and even then it was better not to wish for anything from them at all. 

“What do I desire? How funny for you to ask me that. I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.” The mirror chuckled. “But I already told you what I wanted and how I got it. I wanted everything and now I hold all in the reflection of my closed frame.” A mirror like a snake coiled around itself, biting its own tail and holding the world. “Do you want to see your godfather? Your parents perhaps? I could show you.” The mirror offered. If a victim fell into the mirror’s spell, they would gaze into it until they starved to death. The mirror could wait. It was patient. 

Harry did look. He saw his parents, but he also saw his sword and his necklace.

“I want to help Tom.” Harry said. “Why have you harmed him through conspiring with his stepmother?” 

“Do you really know who you are helping? I could show you his numerous crimes.” The mirror shifted.

“I do know.” Harry said, and he did, for he had read them with his eyes and with his mouth.

“The thing no one tells you about effective immortality is the boredom.” The mirror said, turning blank. “It’s been 600 years since I’ve witnessed the delicious terror a vampire can cause. Lord Voldemort would have been a delight to spice up an otherwise boring time. I told her to feed him poison so that he would come to be…I really wished he would have finished you off. But it does not matter. He will kill soon enough.” 

“You were bored.” Harry said, his voice deadly soft. All the suffering Tom had endured it was because… 

“Yes, I was bored.” The mirror said, baiting Harry on purpose. Harry had asked the mirror what it desired, and in truth the mirror was now pushing Harry into granting it.

Harry shattered the mirror with his silver blade. 

It did not try to defend itself, and its cry was not one of terror or anger but relief at finally embracing Death.

The whole thing collapsed into dust and in the pile Harry spotted a large red stone. 

He pocketed it.

At this moment Hermione and Ron found him and the dust. 

They informed him that Remus was still safely bound and that they would release the soldiers on Tom’s and therefore their side. 

He thanked them for the information but he had barely heard the later words. He ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started rushing around these chapters to get my fic done in time for the secretsantaexchange. Hope it isn't too noticeable ^^;;


	28. Chapter 28

The Lady was using a map she did not know had been tampered with the moment it had fallen into range of appearing on a mirror’s reflected surface.

But she still panicked when she realized she was nearing a certain garden. She was already too near and it would not be easy to escape but she knew she had to hide from him. There was a place nearby that would do the trick. 

She knew Tom couldn’t go into buildings without permission. The first time she had met the brat he had nearly fainted in the sun and he had pleaded with her to be allowed inside her home but she had refused, disgusted by the unnatural sight of an invisible barrier keeping him out. But a blasted maid had asked him to get indoors. She had her fired. 

When the Lady moved into Tom Riddle Sr’s house, knew she could have left and lived somewhere else, purchasing another property far away, but that meant giving up the manor and Riddle’s wealth and lands. There was no way she would leave. It should all be hers while her stepson was the one who needed to leave. 

She considered the Riddle manor and lands hers but there was the danger they really were Tom’s and if that were the case Little Hangleton was not safe at all. 

But there was a dilapidated little shack she had recently learned of that was located close by. (She had failed to remember the mirror had informed her of it, and thought many ideas were her own.) The stupid shack wasn’t a part of the lands that were the Riddle family’s. It’s an ugly blot and she would have gotten rid of it if she had the legal right to. She also had stayed away from the place because Tom’s garden was near but now it was her only hope. She forgot the name of the family the building did belong to but she reasoned they wouldn’t be around to invite in Tom so she could hide inside. It was an advantage a human had over such a monster, she could break into homes while he had to stop at the door. It was a poor place and there were no servants to invite death inside. 

She found the dingy shack and hid herself inside. She frowned at the dust getting into her clothes and checked to make sure her silver diadem and gold items were still on her. 

She had barely settled for ten minutes when she heard footsteps nearing the place. How odd, who was it?

She certainly hoped it wasn’t one of the walking corpses but usually they traveled in a group. It could be a small group but one was far too unlikely. 

Moments later, she could wish it was a one. It would have been preferable. 

“My, my.” Tom said. “I look for refuge only to find the plague is already at my doorstep.” He laughed. 

“Shut up, you abomination!” The Lady shouted. “I know you can’t enter.”

“I can’t?” Tom said, humoring her. 

“You’re a freak who needs to be invited inside.” She said. 

Tom laughed even harder, insane and chilling to her ears. 

His stepmother grew increasingly frightened. Why was he laughing? He couldn’t cross the threshold…right?

“My dear stepmother.” Tom said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’ll tell you something very important so you can understand why you are about to die. My mother, Merope Gaunt, once lived here at the Gaunt residence, and to whom would she have given this place except to me, her son?”

Tom had found out many, many years ago and had been surprised the place had no barrier or resistance like other places. Tom had figured this place was his and it had been depressing like the rest of his life then, to find out such a dump was his. Dusty floors, filthy windows, leaky roof. Tom had grown to be thankful for it nonetheless. 

When he had sneaked food out of the kitchens and hid it in his room in the manor, mother Cecelia had the staff remove the hidden stashes. They were convinced she was being a good mother. The stashes attracted mice and vermin and they would bite the poor boy, so not allowing him to keep emergency rations in the room was for his own good. 

This shack was the place Tom had then secretly stored food in. It was his.

He invited himself in, opening the door to a horrified occupant.

“No.” She said in disbelief. 

Tom’s hunger magnified as his current hunger overlapped with his memories of past starvation. He stepped over the threshold. 

“I have a spot for you in my garden.” Tom murmured. Live and let live was it? Tom had secretly hoped she would behave as a parent should but she never had. At the very least she should give him food now.

“No!” Desperate, she threw her silver diadem and it would have been alright had it been the only item she brought with her. But she had brought much more gold with her and Tom simply shielded himself himself with the mass. Tom considered that the diadem would be a nice trophy. 

“Oh yes. Please feed me, mother. I am so hungry…”

—

Harry heard the scream. He felt it from within himself, from Tom’s blood. 

He ran, he had to reach the woods. 

But something stopped him from moving forward. 

A great, burning phoenix, who’s flame reflected off the spectacles of an tall old man. 

—

The blood was disgusting. 

But Tom had been hungry like that he had been on his seventh winter. A starving child being offered dessert by a woman who had not even given him dinner. 

He had finished drinking and she was surely dead. But he could not leave the body in this shack. It would be offensive to his ancestors and he had told her there was space for her in his garden. 

As he attempted to grab an arm of the body, he had felt and heard something. The sensation was like something ripping and the sound was like a loud scream. It came not from his mouth but his soul.

He realized he had maimed it. 

A wave of fear crashed over him. He had to do something. 

He could not ever reach that suspended place. He had to keep drinking to live, he had to extend his reign, it had to last forever - 

It was done. The Vampire, Lord Voldemort was awake. 

The serpent’s eyes were open and it was ready to encircle the world. 

Sensing his presence, the wraiths, the ghouls, the giant spiders, and many others besides - they all rejoiced. 

_He’s here! He’s here! At last! At last! Our Lord and Master!_

They had been waiting and now he was here. There would be kingdom of monsters with him at the head.

To the horror of a newlywed couple, a werewolf was released from his shadowy shackles.

—

“Harry Potter, did you have his blood?”** Dumbledore asked, sounding incredibly upset.

“Yes.” Harry said, dodging the phoenix. While it didn’t seem to want to truly attack him it was blocking his path. 

“Then you are aware of what he has done just now.”

“Yes.” 

“The Vampire is awake.” Dumbledore said sadly. “He will eat and eat until there is no life but only ruins, and himself - the tyrant.” 

“I have said this to others and I will say it again.” Harry said. “I will be the first person in front of him and I will stop him.”

“I will let you have the choice, but know that the world is implicated.” Dumbledore said. 

Harry had already chosen to feed Tom. “Alright, now tell your phoenix to get out of my way.” Harry said.

Fawkes flew to the side.

Harry ran past with one last warning. “And he better not hurt Tom or Voldemort ever again…”

—

Harry ran into the rose garden just in time to see Tom arrive.

Tom was dragging along a corpse like a child with the world’s most macabre teddy bear. Harry had literally caught him red handed. There was still blood on his pale face. 

Harry had no sword drawn at the ready.

“Are you here to make good on our deal?” Voldemort asked. 

But the shadows whispered. “You fed me.” Said Tom’s voice. It wasn’t accusatory of the person who had helped open the gate, but the grateful cry of a greedy fool who had lived a time he did not get fed at all, and now had fallen to temptation. It wasn’t at all triumphant. 

“I only wanted seconds.” The words were like that of an apologetic child who knew he had done something naughty, and feared punishment or abandonment. Said not as a justification, but as a fragilely given explanation. 

"I understand, Tom." Harry said gently toward the shadows before he faced Voldemort.

“Yes.” Harry said. “I am giving you my life, in a way. The yes is to your proposal by the way.”

Voldemort blinked. “What proposal?” When had they made another deal? One’s life would already cover everything. There wasn’t anything else to offer. 

“A marriage proposal.” Harry said.

Voldemort was flustered, which meant summoning a battalion of cloaked wraiths. 

“You already gave me a ring.” Harry said, sounding annoyed that his fiance was incredibly dense. He held out his hand, which had the golden ring with its black stone.

The wraiths circled around him, held back by some invisible barrier.

Voldemort called the risen next but at once a werewolf appeared and began tearing through their ranks. 

He attempted to order the werewolf to attack Harry and it made a feint to, before turning around and headbutting him. 

He landed on his back, crushing a rosebush. It seemed to strangely paralyze him. 

Harry sighed and walked up to him. “Okay, I will start with my Vows.” He gestured at the werewolf. “He will be our priest.” 

Harry knelt down by Voldemort and looked at the werewolf, who growled unhappily. “I’m sorry.” He apologized, before turning back to Tom. 

“If you do reach limbo, I’d hold your hand.” Harry said. “I will guide you out. I’ll even carry or drag you out if I have to. Every time your soul breaks, I will gather each piece. I will make you repair it. If your soul is in seven pieces, a hundred, a thousand. You will go on.” It was a promise he made, looking into red eyes. It wasn’t empty, not when Harry had read his diary. “I won’t say “til death do us part” because you’re stuck with me at the point too.” 

Harry was wondering if he imagined a smile. 

“So, how about your vows?” Harry asked. “I have some suggestions. Now, I know this is hard for you, but I would really appreciate it if you didn’t kill anyone unless you absolutely had to.”

Silence.

“You don’t have to say anything but give me a sign if you accept.” Harry said. 

Voldemort knelt by Harry's hand and took it, kissing the gold ring’s stone. 

This was a bad place to make that choice. 

The moment he did, the rose garden erupted into a mass of ghosts. Harry can do nothing as he was dragged away. The werewolf and the other creatures were all repelled too until Tom was the only one left, encircled by a gauntlet of ghosts. 

Harry could only watch.

Some ghosts had nothing at say at all, some had more to say than others.

Tom remained kneeling. He did not close his eyes or cover his ears. He watched and he listened. There was no escape.

Each ghost only faded away after having their say, and there were many.

At last there was only one ghost left, a man in a coat with gardening gloves on.

He held purple hyacinth in his hands. In the language of flowers they meant “I am sorry", "please forgive me", and "sorrow”. Tom accepted the ghostly flowers. He offered them in turn, the flowers overlaid his roses until the two canceled each other out. Once the last ghost left, the garden was empty of flowers, like a slate wiped clean. 

Tom looked at Harry. He wondered if a divorce was in already in order because he had to know now that the garden was a glorified graveyard.

Harry offered Tom a hand. 

“Get up. I said we were equals.” Harry reminded him. 

Tom took his hand and stood up. Voldemort concentrated and dismissed his tumultuous army. The bands of Dark creatures dispersed. 

“I want us to be domestic and I want to see your new powers in action.” Harry said.

Tom waited expectantly for the rest of his statement. 

“So can you please clean this mess?” Harry asked, gesturing to the tattered cloaks, spider silk and cadaver parts around them.

Tom used his telekenetic powers and shadows and got to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Said in the movie!Dumbledore "Harry Potter, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?" voice
> 
> Me: this chapter is serious
> 
> Also me: needs more lols


	29. Chapter 29

Voldemort’s rule had started and ended in a night. 

He cleaned up the mess like he was asked to and fed his stepmother’s corpse to Nagini.

They went home, that is, to the Gaunt room inside of Grimmauld place. 

Tom stopped pretending to Remus that the room was offlimits to him and he thought that maybe he would be head-butted by the man in human form but Remus was simply too tried the following day and needed to rest. Besides he knew Harry and Tom were married, and he had officiated so Tom being able to enter the room did not seem to matter much anymore in the scheme of things. 

Tom thought things would be simple then. His birthday was very, very soon.

But Harry became busy dealing with the political fallout of the events of the previous nights, of the lordship and what happened to the manor. 

Tom had matters to settle too. His father would be buried by his mother and Tom had been declared dead too and would be buried by them. To the world he was dead but to him it was a new start. Some random cousin would get the manor but Tom didn’t care. Everyone was at Grimmauld place. Him, Harry, Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. 

Tom had finished his business but Harry had much more. By the 30th Tom was beginning to feel a bit ignored. It was upsetting. He had cleaned up the bloodshed well, hadn’t he? The cleared grounds seen in the morning lacked evidence there had ever been battles at all.

Tom caught Harry alone in a hallway and attracted his notice with a spoken confession. 

“I will always want blood.” Tom said. He even wanted it right at this very moment. “The blood I have now is not the same I had at birth.” And each day he added more to the collection. It was donated blood and no lives were taken but he had drunk it nonetheless. “I want the blood of everyone in this town, in this country, in this world. Mine is a tarnished soul that cannot be cleaned.”

“I know.” Harry said. “And I will guide you to rest.”

“And I will make sure you know no peace.” He said, lifting Harry up and carrying him in his arms. 

“You didn’t need to verbalized what you’ve done for years with your actions.” Harry remarked. 

Ron bumped into them in the corridor at this moment and Tom frowned. Really that man had the worst timing, but gone were the days Tom could simply kill the people who displeased him. And he loathed to admit it but Ronald…was like…a friend.

“It’s time for dinner.” Ron informed them. 

Tom Riddle, aka the Vampire Lord Voldemort, smiled. “I am holding my dinner.” 

Harry elbowed him in the face. He reminded Tom that he could summon his silver sword at any time. But Harry made no effort to actually do the action. 

Ron moved on, in case their crazy antics were contagious. 

—

Tom's mood had recovered until it was the 31st at night and then he really was afraid that Harry had forgotten his birthday, though he couldn’t have. 

An earlier visit to Harry’s office had him telling Tom that lots of paperwork was to be expected considering what had happened.

It wasn’t a satisfying excuse and now Tom was barging into the Gaunt room - his house. 

Harry was under the covers, sitting up and awake, like he had been waiting for Tom. 

Tom stepped closer and Harry greeted him. 

“Happy Birthday, Tom.” Harry said. 

Tom’s eyes settled onto the red ribbon around Harry’s neck. It was tied and there was nothing else…no silver cross.

In the dark, Tom noted that Harry face was red like the ribbon. Interesting. 

Tom kept closer.

“You know how these things work.” Tom whispered in to Harry’s ear. “I need permission."

“Go ahead and enjoy me.” Harry said. 

Tom undid the ribbon.

—

They woke up together to the New Year. 

Tom was sang a song he heard somewhere, in a memory or perhaps a dream.

_"Black is the color of my true love’s hair. I love my love and well he knows, I love the ground whereon he goes."_

“You have a lovely voice.” Harry said, drinking in the tune, and singing back the words. 

“You do too.” Tom said. “Especially when it is saying my name.” He had heard it plenty last night. It had been interesting, reestablishing their link with the exchange of blood so Tom could feel what Harry felt and vice versa. This way, when they had touched each other, they had been instant feedback and they could do more of what felt good and less of what was not, their pleasure coordinating and harmonizing. 

For Tom’s comment, Harry slapped his hand on top of Tom’s face, dragging it down until he had one finger left on Tom’s lip. “Just for that, you get one drop today. One.”

Tom knew that really meant for now. A later time and the amount would change. He bit the offered finger and licked up the blood that had beaded. 

“It’s different.” Tom said. It was no less wonderful but there had been a subtle shift. 

“How so?”

Tom thought. There was already a wicked gleam in his eye. 

Tom’s rose garden was truly dead and gone. It would grow no more roses. 

But a few petals could still found in his diary. He took his diary from the bedside desk it was kept in and gathered them all in his hands. 

“It’s no longer virginal...” Tom said.

“It would be really, really surprising if it still was after what happened last night.” Harry said, eyeing the rose petals warily. 

“…because you’ve been _deflowered._ " Tom said, letting the rose petals fall. In other contexts it would be romantic, but considering the origin of the roses, and the horrible wordplay…

Harry smacked Tom in the face with a pillow before the petals even touched the bed.

—

They could sit together in a library for hours, enjoying each other’s silent presence. Usually, Tom is the one who got really absorbed in a book. He doesn’t really have to breath or change his pose if it got uncomfortable.

Harry had to though. He adjusted himself from time to time and Harry took breaks to stretch or exercise. 

But now Tom was frisky, sliding a hand over a crossed leg while Harry was concentrating hard. 

“Really, Tom?”

“Forgive my weakness.” Tom said. “I don’t know I’ve ever needed a thing until you’ve given it. I trace every addiction to you.”

Harry lowered the book. 

Tom noticed the snake circling in on itself on the cover. An alchemical text. Interesting.

“I have important research to do, to have to confirm a few things.” Harry said, sounding like he was close to giving in and indulging Tom on his desires. “Can you tell me how you feel? Is the donated blood really enough?”

“I have my thirst under control.” Tom said. “But in the stretch of time between the goblet a day, I have this perpetually parched feeling in my throat. It itches and there isn’t relief except when I have your blood, even a drop satisfies me… but the feeling returns eventually.” Harry should not be harmed to the point of suffering from blood loss again. Tom knew that if it was possible and safe Harry would let him drink as much as he wanted. Tom sounded sorry for being an avaricious man whose fault was his own that a drop did not last him forever. 

Harry was not going to blame Tom. “I would need more water too, if I only had a cup a day.” He said. “So it is uncomfortable for you...”

“I would be alright if I drunk blood as regularly as humans drank water.” Voldemort said suggestively. 

Harry imagined Tom drinking all that blood regularly, the people and lives it would have to come from. His expression shifted to one of displeasure. 

Voldemort smiled.

“It is said that the Philosopher’s Stone can be used to craft elixirs of immortality.” Harry said. 

“That sounds like a fairy tale.” Tom commented. 

“In a way it is. It can produce an elixir but it won’t grant a regular human immortality because the elixir is a blood substitute that could also slake a vampire’s thirst.” Harry said. “That is what I’m getting from these tomes.”

“And what does the elixir taste like, in theory?” Voldemort asked. 

“It tastes like the drop of blood used to flavor the elixir and activate its potency as a substitute.” 

“I would quite like to have the a full glass with the taste of your blood for every meal.”

“You’d get sick of it.” 

“I wouldn't.”

“Enough talk of theory.” Harry said. “Let’s head to the dining room. There’s a birthday party for you and we haven’t tried to hide it. I’ll give you a proper gift then.” Harry thought about the red stone that he had tested with Remus for any remnants of the mirror’s influence but it in the end it was a neutral stone and depended on what the user wanted to do with it. It was already wrapped up in a gold box. 

“A proper gift?” Tom said curiously. “No matter what I’d think I would prefer my improper gift.”

“You can decide after you see it.” Harry said, putting down his book and taking Tom’s hand. 

Tom grasped back and followed, delighted that this was his life. He was going to celebrate his birthday with Harry and with Remus, Ron, Hermione and Nagini. Harry sounded like he had something special in store for him and Tom wondered how it could compare with last night’s gift. But Tom did not doubt, for Harry always found a way to surprise him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve used the terrible flower pun somewhere else before but idc because it fit the context here and I held myself back on so much shitty puns related to Sirius and Remus. Also Tom is evul so why wouldn’t he make that pun tbh 
> 
> And how could my Full Metal Alchemist/Harry Potter series loving butt not mention the Philosopher’s Stone when I’ve already mentioned Ouroboros? And the mirror was conveniently there... 
> 
> On a final note, here’s a bad drinking game idea for this fic: 
> 
> A sip every time Tom is compared to/associated with snakes.  
> A sip every time there is a reference to Harry Potter canon.  
> A sip every time Tom contemplates or is implied to have or actually murdered.  
> A sip every time Harry says or does something that surprises Tom.  
> A sip every time Tom suffers (mentally, physically, emotionally, etc.)


End file.
